Larva I Have Loved
the art of surrender
Photo Credit: J. Howeth
Three times in my life I have had the extraordinary experience of coming across a Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly Larva. In street language? A caterpillar - always in a place of risk and danger – on a walking path, in a parking lot, on the metal frame of a hot screen door. “Where are they going?” I never fail to ask. So vulnerable to tires and people’s feet, I’m perplexed.
By the time I had found them they were in their final larval stage, having gorged on leaves until they are approximately 5 cm in length. At this time of their life cycle, they’re frankly pretty darned unattractive – once a vibrant, velvety green with deceptive fake yellow eye spots, a black thoracic band, and blue polka dots, they have now changed into a dusky orange with a waxy looking surface. And they are in pursuit of a suitable place to attach themselves, so they can transition into their chrysalises or pupae. Once they’ve found a location that suits them (in my experience, a leaf, after I’ve scooped them up and contained them in a Mason jar so I can observe them), they attach themselves upside down with a delicate silk thread and quickly encapsulate themselves into a hard shell that itself, over the span of a few days, morphs into what looks like tree bark. Masters of disguise, they’re susceptible to being overlooked. It’s frankly amazing that any of them survive to their final stage of life (the butterfly) with the fervor that people employ to rake up the fallen leaves from their yards in the autumn.
Photo Credit: J. Howeth
Photo Credit: J. Howeth
Of the three larvae I have found, only once have I successfully over-wintered a Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly. For me, the experience of a lifetime! Each discovery has sent me down a warren of research, reading everything I can about these remarkable creatures in my attempts to provide the correct environment that will help them realize their final phase of life. But it’s a tricky endeavor. So many things can go wrong. These guys will spend nearly 10 months in this deep sleep. Despite keeping my specimens in an unheated garage at temperatures that mimic the weather outside, protected from minute insects and mice looking for a mid-winter snack, I still have mourned the two that didn’t survive. And I can’t help but wonder, if I had left them alone to brave the outdoors on their own, would they have seen the spring?
Photo Credit: J. Howeth
If there’s one aspect of these insects’ lives that makes me nearly speechless it is this final stage before final manifestation into a butterfly. This ultimate surrender into a world of transformation is, on the one hand a little unnerving and on the other hand the quintessential definition of “surrender.” I’m sure there is an art to it - acceptance of the most radical kind. Can you comprehend it? To give yourself over completely to something beyond your control? Completely immobilized, amorphous, and helpless as all your inner “parts” reorganize themselves, protected by a natural form of anti-freeze, into a completely different being? It’s phenomenal.
I know more than a few people who are in awe of space and stars and the cosmos and the wonderment of what’s “out there” and how we came to be. It sounds silly, but I can’t think that big. For me, it’s this miniature realm with its mystery and magic that I find awesome.
