Cool insects on the Joe Pye Weed

The Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) is tall and flowering and was attracting butterflies, bees and spiders the other day (click photos for larger).

The butterfly is an Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), though I didn't get him to pose to show the swallowtail better. It is the state butterfly of Delaware.


The bee.

And a very interesting, but shy and hard to photograph bright yellow spider.


If you know what kind of spider this is please post in the comments.

Caterpillars

At the end of September, I noticed some large banded and spotted caterpillars finishing off the last of the parsley in the garden.

There were about five caterpillars.

They crawled up and down the stems denuding the plants of any leaves. When the y got the end of a stalk they would get confused and then turn around and start down again.




I thought that these might be Monarch Butterfly caterpillars, but a search at this site revealed that these are likely to be the second instar or moult of the caterpillar stage of Black Swallowtail caterpillars. The pictures match and the wikipedia article (Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes) even mentions that they like to eat plants from the carrot family like dill and parsley.