A female Orchard Butterfly
Papilio aegeus was observed laying a single egg on our lemon tree. She was a beautiful big butterfly with a very big bite sized chunk missing from both back wings. As she jinked into the garden, it was interesting to see how excited she was by the lemon trees, fussing all around until laying a single pearly egg.
The egg gradually became darker as the caterpillars black head became apparent. Then one morning, 8 days after the egg was laid, the little guy was hatched out.
Then he did a U-Turn and commenced to eat up the egg case.
The caterpillar was able to produce the osmeterium at a few hours old.
