Black Swallowtail

A cute caterpillar....

Those little orange "stick things" that you saw are called Osmeterium. It is a defense mechanism that swallowtail caterpillars have. When they feel threatened, they will extend these out and often wave them towards whatever is bothering them. If you are close enough, you might notice a funky smell. This odor is meant to deter possible predators (along with the surprise of this brightly colored thing coming at them).

Hello P7 and Welcome to the Project Noah community! We hope you like the website as much as we do. There are many aspects to the site and community. The best way to get started is to read the FAQs at http://www.projectnoah.org/faq where you can find all the tips, advice and "rules" of Project Noah. You, like the rest of the community, will be able to suggest IDs for species that you know (but that have not been identified), and make useful or encouraging comments on other users' spottings (and they on yours). There are also "missions" you can join and add spottings to. See http://www.projectnoah.org/missions . A mission you should join is the http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/2165776002 to chose the best wild photo of 2018,only the spottings added to that mission are eligible.Note that most missions are "local". Be sure not to add a spotting to a mission that was outside of mission boundaries or theme :) Each mission has a map you may consult showing its range. We also maintain a blog archive http://blog.projectnoah.org/ where we have posted previous articles from specialists from different geographical areas and categories of spottings, as well as wildlife "adventures". So enjoy yourself, share, communicate, learn. See you around :)