Information about the Swallowtail Butterfly

After the male and the female butterfly have been together for two days they find a place to lay an egg. They lay eggs in many different places about 100 eggs for one butterfly. After only one day the egg gets a very dark spot on it. Four days later the eggs will turn all black.

Six days later you can see the eggs moving and after one week they come out of the egg. It takes about six minutes to come out of the egg completely.

Caterpillars change colors as they get older, and caterpillar stages and size goes like this:
1st stage = 0.6-0.9 mm (How thick they are)
2nd stage = 1.6-1.8 mm
3rd stage = 2.5-2.8 mm
4th stage = 3.5-3.8 mm
5th stage = S mm

Example of a Swallowtail Butterfly.

The caterpillars look like mud, so birds normally can't spot them. But just because birds can't notice them it doesn't mean that other insects can't notice them. Spiders and ants eat them.

When they are 4th stage they turn in to green by taking their clothes off. While they are turning in to a pupa, then they will get a black line, that will stick to the tree. But ants eat butterflies too.

After the time passes away, the pupa changes in to a very beautiful color. And a little later ,it's back splits, and then the wings came out of it. Then finally they become a beautiful butterfly. Their wings are waterproof so they get protected by rain.

The Giant Purple Butterfly

This butterfly is a very beautiful butterfly, but we can not see them so often because they live in the forest, not on the trees and grass as the normal butterflies. (see photograph)

They are very brave, so sometimes they follow the birds, which can eat them, and they make a loud sound when they are flying. One strange thing is that they don't move away while they are eating, even tough something comes near them. They like eating old foods.

Until 2 o'clock the butterflies fly away, but about at 10 o'clock they meet again. The male butterflies all have purple in their wings, but the female butterflies don't have that many colors in their wings, However when they have their wings folded the female butterflies can be much prettier. The male butterfly is 5.8cm, and the female butterfly is 4.8 cm.

After seven months the male butterflies looks for female butterflies. They take about 3-4 hours. The male butterfly is bigger then the female butterfly. . After one week they can lay eggs.

Many kinds of butterflies are found in the rainforests.

The Giant Purple Butterfly (continued)

The caterpillars eat special leaves, which is different from the others so the female butterfly has to lay the eggs in on a special leaf. One butterfly can normally lay 100 eggs, but some can lay as many as 180 eggs at one time. . They take about 15 seconds to lay an egg. And the eggs are about 1.5cm.

After four days, the eggs turn orange. After seven days, they become a very blackish egg and tiny little orange bugs come out of the egg. In that tiny little egg it is very incredible, that more then 30 bugs can live. Then they get ready to become a caterpillar. When they are born they will be 3mm, and they search for a new leaf.

When the weather is hot the adult butterfly's wings get all ruined. And they loose their energy. In August the number of butterflies shrink because the adult butterflies can live only 40 days as adults.

During the first stage caterpillar can be eaten by ants. When they are 2nd stage the little spiders can eat them. During the first stage caterpillar gets another color in about 9-12 days. During the second stage they get horns to protect themselves.

They change their size more then ten times, before they turn in to a pupa. Normally in September they start the fourth stage. Then they are stay in one place, and they change in to the color of the leaf.

In October the caterpillars have to come down the tree, because the bad weather might hurt them. Deep in the snow you might see the caterpillar. In the winter they don 't eat anything, and they just sleep until Spring. Sometimes the deep snow keeps them warm during stages four and five.

In May, they wake up, and they climb up the tree again, to start a new year. They eat very much, and don't move at all as though they were dead. After they climb the tree again they will be in the same color, but after 10 days they turn back to green. and they are stage five.

When they eat the leaf, they eat from the edge. We think that they know that if you eat from the other side they'll fall down.

A lot of the habitat of rainforest butterflies is disappearing.

About at June , they normally are at stage six. Stage six caterpillars grow 1.8 mm a day, so they also become 7 cm and can weigh as much as five grams. If you think about it carefully they grow 23 times larger than when they were born, which was 3 mm. And they grow 1700 times heavier than when they were born, which was 0.003g. (People can grow only 20 times more in 20 years ,so that is very incredible.)

The size of the butterfly.
1st stage 0.003 cm
2nd stage 1.3 cm
3rd stage 2 cm
4th stage 2.5 cm
5th stage 4 cm
6th stage 8 cm

A lot of the habitat of these butterflies has disappeared because of the clearing of the forests. Fortunately there are still a lot of Giant Purple butterflies. You might see one if you are lucky.