Swallowtail

The black swallowtail caterpillar seemed to have gone missing when I checked this morning. Then I saw his large self fairly far up the stem/trunk of my variegated basil, which is in the same pot with all the parsley. Accidental detour, or does he plan to pupate there?

And why do I think of all caterpillars as male?

EDIT: Here's a < href="http://bugguide.net/node/view/33939">caption from a website telling how long it took a caterpillar to go from first instar to butterfly:

The first image was taken on June 22; the pupa formed July 2; and the butterfly emerged on July 12, 2005

Crossposting from my LJ to Facebook and Twitter

Do.Not.Like. Do.Not.Want. Maybe it's time to move to Dreamwidth lock, stock, and barrel rather than just using it for backup? See this post for explanation: http://wcg.livejournal.com/725788.html

I'm assuming that no one on my f-list plans to activate that crosspost feature. True?

The poor little caterpillar

Weather Underground said the temperature at Broad & Washington at 3:00 was 98F. Having read that immediately after coming back from a photo expedition to Broad & Washington, I am convinced that it was significantly warmer in the direct sun. Bleah.

( meanwhile, out in the back yard )