The results are in: larvae of Polydamas swallowtail who grow up eating Dutchman’s pipe leaves in Boca Raton apparently prefer to pupate on neighboring cocoplum plantings. The caterpillar that we saw in Monday’s post has indeed gone on to pupate. Pictures and commentary across the jump.
In this first shot you can see the strands of silk that will serve to anchor the pupa in its chosen location and, significantly, orientation. The caterpillar is horizontal, in almost the same orientation as the leaves on the branch it has chosen:
As a young pupa, it looks a bit like a ragged, unhealthy leaf:
But after a day or so, it takes on the fresh green coloration of the rest of the plant. It even has a bright line down the long axis that looks like a midrib, the better to imitate a leaf on this cocoplum plant. If you look carefully, you can see the black silk threads at the distal end of the abdomen that are one of the few clues that this is not, in fact a leaf:
If only the adults would be as obligingly photogenic as the rest of the life stages:
