Raising Butterflies!

Black Swallowtails to be exact!

We found some caterpillars munching down on my parsley, so we looked them up to see what butterfly they changed into before feeding them to the birds :)

When I realized they were black swallowtails (duh! how was this tidbit unbeknownst to me this long?), I suggested we raise them.
Cool educational opportunity for all, right?

 I'm really sad that my laptop crashed and I lost all our pictures from day 1 until now.

But these are our first butterflies to emerge from their cocoons!

The setup: an old fish bowl w/ a piece of mesh tied over the top with sticks and their daily ration of parsley

 Getting ready to release our first swallowtails

 These had been pumping their wings for a few hours and were ready to go! I hope to see them around the yard again.

 2 cocoons from the first butterflies...

I was quite interested by these particular 2.

They attached themselves to the glass instead of the sticks like the rest.
I was really wondering what color they'd choose for their cocoons because generally they are the color of whatever they attach to which is normally green or brown.

Considering the glass bowl was facing out to a white-ish wall, my interest was justified.

One chose green and the other chose brown...cool huh?

Another caterpillar getting ready to shed his skin and form his cocoon with another readying himself to become a butterfly inside his cocoon already. 

So far, we've had 4 hatch and have 4 more incubating.