Looks like Pipevine eggs to me. When you say your vine is only 6 feet tall, I hope there are several vines with leaves, all being about 6 feet tall. One vine at 6 feet will probably not feed all those little cats, providing they all survive. This is my first year attempting to hand raise them, as last year I didn't have enough food for them so left them to mother nature. This year my vines have much more growth so am attempting to rear them by hand. We have wasps who carry off the baby cats so they don't have much chance if left outside and unprotected.

Congratulations and I hope you have great success with your little guys.

Mary

I hope you have enough leaves to feed them, too!
Congratulations!
Sherry

This will not be sufficient for the caterpillars?

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When you mentioned a vine of 6 ft, the first thing that came to my mind was a 'vine' at 6 ft, not a plant at 6 ft. :-) My bad. However, you will be surprised at just how much they will consume. Bless you for planting host plants for these lovely creatures.

Mary

Ok, whew, I got scared. And then I was thinking exactly what you said, maybe they thought I meant it was just a single vine with only a few leaves on it. I hope the plant I have is sufficient. If not, I'll have to go to my dad's house and steal some of his. He planted 4 Aristolochia tomentosa, and a Virginia Snakeroot for them...however he doesn't have any eggs on his. I was very surprised to have eggs on mine, as I'm in the city here and don't usually see a lot of butterflies, but he is in the country and gets a ton of butterflies. I guess if you plant it they will come huh? lol

Yes, I believe that is so, plant it and they will come.

I live in the city, too, and I was very surprised to see eggs on my small Pipevines last year. I also have the variegated white dutchmens pipevine and some Virginia Snakeroot plants. They ate all of those plants down to the ground last year. Every time I turned around, I would notice more eggs but seldom spotted mama pipevine swallowtail. Then the little guys would hatch and slowly but surely, their numbers would decrease. I saw one very big cat one morning, finishing up the Virginia Snakeroot and then never saw him again. That was the largest one I ever saw and I don't know if he made it. We have wasps that carry off the little cats.

I hope I'm able to save some this year by raising them in an enclosure.

Bravo to your Dad for planting host plants for them, too! Please let us know how your babies do.

Mary

They have started hatching!

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They're darling!
You'll really enjoy these - they're my favorite caterpillar!
Sherry

Congratulations! Those babies are looking nice and healthy. Thank you so much for sharing your photos with us.

Are you planning to raise them by hand?

Mary

Yes, they are already inside, and split into 3 groups in 3 separate containers, so I can keep better track of them. The smaller group of 15 will be going to live with my father when they get a little bigger. He's got 4 Pipevines and 1 Virginia Snakeroot

Whoo hoo, get your sissors ready. When these little cats get into 4th-5th instars, they are eating machines. I'm having to feed every two/three hours in mulitple cups.

Their munching sounds like tiny little hailstones hitting something, all the clicking going on, with little faces moving back and forth on the edge of the leaf like a typewriter. I thought Monarch cats ate a lot but I do believe these Pipevine Swallowtails can outdo them!

Mary

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Here's a 30 second video of the little Pipevine cats eating. Can you hear the clicking they make when they eat?

Mary

Here is a link that might be useful: Pipevine Swallowtail Cats video

Awesome link! Thanks for that, it was really neat to see!

New photo, at least one is already in 2nd instar :)
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Congrats on the Pipevine cats!

Mary, That video was so neat. They sound like a roomful of people typing. They are very busy! :)

Third instar!!

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