Photo used with permission. These butterflies not only grace your garden with their beauty, but they are also important pollinators. The beautiful Eastern Black Swallowtail Papilio polyxenes including some of its larval host plants.
Used with permission. Sometimes people confuse these caterpillars with Monarch caterpillars. They do resemble each other, but the big difference is Monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. Black swallowtails eat plants from the Apiaceae or Umbelliferae family commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family. These two caterpillars look similar but have different diets.
If you grow carrots, celery, dill, parsley or any related plants, you may be familiar with the parsley worm caterpillar. This particular caterpillar is hard to miss with its large size, distinctive appearance and huge appetite for plants in the Apiaceae family. ID The Parsley Worm Sporting a broad 2-inch-long body, the mature parsley worm caterpillar is pale green and covered with a series of black transverse stripes, each covered with yellowish spots.
When agitated, the parsley worm reveals one of its more interesting physical features: a forked orange horn-like projection that extends out from behind the head of the caterpillar to intimidate potential predators and release a repulsive scent.
Not only is parsley worm visually striking, it is the larva form of the gorgeous black swallowtail butterfly Papilio polyxenes , which is found throughout North and Central America. When they are small, the damage is not as noticeable. Once they get large, they can cause a lot of damage quickly. But, it takes a while for that to happen. If you will observe your plant frequently and carefully for early signs of feeding and small caterpillars, you can pick them off and destroy them before they cause so much damage.
The other option is to spray the plants constantly with an insecticide to kill any caterpillars that show up to feed on your parsley. Spray your parsley plants about once a week to keep them protected. Search Search. Parsley Worm Caterpillars Daniel Gill. Dan, I have a problem. Well, you can always remove the caterpillars from the dill or parsley plants. Or… What I do is leave some parsley in the garden to overwinter.
That following spring, the parsley a biennial will bloom. Those are the plants I let the caterpillars have. The rest — the newly planted parsley — is for me. I have plants from seeds that I got from the monarch people … they will probably take away my letter of appreciation for building a monarch waystation!
Yes, you have to be careful as when they are really small they look like bird poop. I actually witnessed one crawl out of my garden and nestle himself into a gap in my fence. Such a beautiful life-cycle. I started growing herbs in pots and found about six of them on my parsley this morning. I snipped the parsley leaves that the little caterpillars seemed to be sleeping on and tossed them over the fence. I had a similar thought as Virginia…. One for me, one for the caterpillars. Thanks for your wonderful website and pictures!
Where did the swallowtail caterpillars go!!!! I live on a second floor and had them on the parsley out on the balcony.. Hi Rose — They probably flew off as butterflies! Caterpillars grow and transform much faster than seems possible. And, often, they crawl quite far from their food plant before pupating. So, you may never find their chrysalis. I suspect this is to foil predators. I discovered tiny worms on my parsley before a long weekend vacation and just returned to find huge caterpillars!
They devoured the plant and had to search online to find out what they were. I had worms on my parsley plant didet know what they were look them up and cant eat the parsley now what should I do with plant help angie.
You can let the caterpillars have the plant they are pretty. Either way, the plant should recover once the caterpillars are done eating and growing. We just came home from being gone two weeks; I had 4 caterpillars in various stages, happily munching on the potted parsley. I carefully moved them to the cage. Should I have purchased organic parsley?? Did I inadvertently kills the new caterpillars? Not sure, Jeannie, though that certainly seems possible. Better luck next time!
Thanks, Cristina. It was the largest of the 4 that I had a week or so and the only one to survive. Imagine my surprise when I found my parsley half gone! Now that I know what they are I will plant more parsley next spring. I always try to overwinter some parsley, both for the flowers and seeds, and to provide more forage for parsley worms. Oh boy!! Anyone have an answer??? I have never seen them crawling about or get up my rock wall into the plants.
It is so bizarre!! Parsley worms are the caterpillars of black swallowtail butterflies. The female butterflies lay their eggs on your plant, but the caterpillars are quite small when they first hatch. If you want to have your parsley and your parsley worms too, you can either plant a few sacrifice parsley plants or transfer the caterpillars to any other parsley-family plant fennel, parsley, dill, carrots….
Is it possible for these caterpillars to be found on orange trees? I have two baby orange trees that I planted in my backyard in Spring I went searching for pests this morning on one of them as I noticed a very large amount of leaves had been eaten. I did find what looked like bird poop on several leaves, but left it alone as I thought it really was poop! This was found on the top of the leaves, not the undersides which is where I thought caterpillars hung out.
I about peed myself when one end reared back and two orange things came shooting out! Continuing my search lead me to your site and the parsleyworm. I do have a pretty good size veggie and herb garden on the side of my house. Thank you in advance for any help you can give in helping me identify exactly what type of caterpillar I have devouring my poor little orange tree. But, parsley worms are not the only caterpillars to use frightful displays as a defense against predators. Good luck tracking down the actual ID of that caterpillar!
I just found out myself. With so much technology, why did I not use it. I feel awful. I killed all 3 of them, they looked dangerous. I did the same thing…killed 3 of them. I feel terrible as I love black Swallowtailed butterflies. I hope I have some more caterpillars and will take care of them.
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