Love and Hate of the Beautiful Pest - Lime Butterfly (Pt 1)

Like many things in life, a love and hate of something is mostly about perspective and really depend on individual choice. Same goes to Lime butterfly (Papilio demoleus). Is a beauty for those who see it as a beautiful elegant butterfly and yet a pest to those who plant lime tree as ornamental plants or as crops.

I enjoy taking butterfly photos and always ask my family member not to remove any caterpillars that they been complaining biting away the beautiful lime tree. But most of the time, the caterpillars are pick up by birds before they able to turn to butterfly. So, I try a new approach that able to continue to let the population of butterfly grow without being predated before the caterpillars turn to butterfly. To do so, I will keep and feed the caterpillars indoor in a tank and release them when they turn to butterfly.

Is easier to pick them after they hatch from the egg. You may search the underside of the young leaves of the newly laid egg after sighting of butterfly around your lime tree. The egg is about only 1mm in diameter. Butterfly are very picky about their host plant, so you will only have Lime butterfly visit your lime tree and not other butterflies.

After 2 to 3 days, the egg will turn to brown colour and the caterpillar is ready to eat their way out of the egg shell. 

This newly hatched caterpillar have a rather spiky look with yellowing brown colour.

From now, the caterpillar will go through 5 instars before turning to pupa and butterfly. They will go through moulting each time before entering next instar. 

During 2nd instar, is still with the spiky appearance and looks like a bird droppings from top.

The caterpillar will have less spiky appearance during 3rd instar. 

During 4th instar, the caterpillar still looks like a bird drooping but is now less spiky and more silky.

During 5th instar, the smooth appearance totally different from the last 4 instars. The size now reaching  42mm is about 14X from their 1st instar. 

After about 4 days in the 5th instar, the caterpillar will prepare themselves to become a pre-pupatory larva.

The caterpillar will secure themselves with silk pad at their cremaster (the tail section) and further support by silk girdle over their thorax and stay dormant. To be continued...