True, the Paw Paw is our country’s largest native edible fruit. Holy wow, the taste and fragrance from the cut-open fruit was an olfactory extravaganza, reminding me of a combination of all Caribbean fruit. That day filming the Zebra swallowtail for TV, I learned personally as I ate my first Paw Paw. No one knew what a Paw Paw was and most likely, neither did the teacher. We bent over and put them in our pockets. Fortunately, there are several species in the wild, with the one known botanically as Asminia triloba having the widest range.Īs a kid growing up in Abilene, Texas, I sang the song “Picking up Paw Paws,” like you probably did as an exercise. In other words, no Paw Paw leaves, no Zebra swallowtails. The Zebra swallowtail is not endangered, but like the Monarch, it too has a pretty rigid diet for the caterpillar stage, and that is the Paw Paw.
PAWPAW ZEBRA SWALLOWTAIL TV
Twenty years ago, I had filmed it for Southern Gardening TV with Mississippi State University and had since begun to think I might never see it again.
PAWPAW ZEBRA SWALLOWTAIL ZIP
I would urge any gardener, homeschool teacher or science teacher looking to add more zip to your STEM requirements to visit your local public garden during butterfly season.īut a couple of days ago, my walk around the center at Callaway Gardens gave me a glimpse back into one of the most beautiful native butterflies in the Eastern United States: the Zebra swallowtail. In other words, build and they will come.Īfter having been the director of the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, my vision of nature was transformed as I could see more clearly the importance certain plants played in the sustainability of pollinators. Outside the center, however, is where I like to hang out where you see what can happen at your home. It’s the place to give you a glimpse of the butterflies of Central America and the Tropics. Day Butterfly Center is among the best in the country. All photos by Mary Lee Epps.Callaway Gardens is famous for a lot of things in the world of nature, and certainly the Cecil B. This article first appeared in the Fall, 2019 edition of The Declaration, the newsletter of the Jefferson Chapter of VNPS. Peterson Field Guide to Moths, by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2012.Butterflies through Binoculars: the East, by Jeffrey Glassberg, Oxford University Press, 1999.Wagner, Princeton Field Guides, Princeton University Press, 2005. Caterpillars of Eastern North America, by David L.Asimina triloba, Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora.Eurytides Marcellus, by Leticia Davila 2001, Animal Diversity Web.Butler, Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida. Featured Creatures: Zebra Swallowtail, by Donald W.Connections: The Pawpaw Tree and the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly, by Laura Seale, Blue Ridge Discovery Center.Hormaza, Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University. The Pawpaw, a Forgotten North American Fruit Tree, by Jose I.Layne, Kentucky State University Extension Service. Pawpaw Description and Nutritional Information, by Snake C.Want to know more? Here are my helpful references: (My first thought was that this was a way to assure that some eggs escaped predators, but apparently the caterpillars can be cannibalistic so that scattering the eggs helps protect the caterpillars from each other.) Instead it lay only one egg on a given leaf. She soon realized that the butterfly was laying eggs on the newly emerging leaves, but it didn’t simply choose a likely leaf and deposit a mass of eggs. In mid-April a couple of years ago my daughter, Mary Jane, who spends a great deal of time in the woods observing nature, was watching a zebra swallowtail butterfly flitting about a pawpaw tree that was just leafing out. Zebra swallowtail caterpillars, by ingesting these compounds, make themselves unpalatable to many predators.
If you see a zebra swallowtail around our part of Virginia, you can be sure that there are pawpaws nearby.Ĭompounds called acetogenins in the leaves and leaf twigs are repellent to most insects, birds and browsing mammals. In the Deep South there are a few other species of Asimina that can host the caterpillar but in most of Virginia and in states farther north, Asimina triloba is the only host. The zebra swallowtail is beautiful with dramatic black and white stripes enhanced by long swallowtails and touches of red. One of the most attractive features of pawpaw is that it is host plant to the caterpillar of the zebra swallowtail butterfly ( Protographium marcellus, formerly Eurytides marcellus). Zebra Swallowtail Newly Emerged from Chrysalis
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