Black Swallowtails

[RChyinski at aol.com]

Info on the Black Swallowtails I have been raising. To save the Dill plants  
in the garden I collected most of the caterpillars shortly after they emerged  
from their eggs and placed them in a terrarium on live Dill and Fennel 
plants.  As the caterpillars grew to full size I placed dry sticks in the terrarium 
to  give them a place to attach to and form chrysalis. The attached photo 
shows the  difference in color of the chrysalis between the ones on the sticks and 
the ones  on the live plants. 
I have not read much about the ability of caterpillars to detect the color  
of the object they are using to attach to and to adjust their color to match  
that color and was wondering if this is common in all butterfly species.
 
Rich Chyinski
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