Photo credit of Monarch butterfly caterpillar: Baltimore Sun/Sarah Kickler Kelber 

I've been writing today about what I thought was a Monarch butterfly caterpillar on my parsley.

At least I thought it was a Monarch butterfly caterpillar.

Maureen posted a comment saying the picture I used was of a Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar.

She might be right. But we'll never know. The caterpillar is gone. And I am pretty sure he didn't fly away in his new state. I am guessing he had help from a bird.

Anyway.

The picture I used was taken by my friend Sarah Kelber at a butterfly garden. I thought the picture I had chosen was of Monarch caterpillar, but if you look at pictures of Swallowtail caterpillars, they have a lot in common. That whole stripe thing goin' on.

Neither the pictures I took of my caterpillar, nor the ones we videotaped in the vegetable garden of Maryland first lady Katie O ‘ Malley are clear enough to say for sure.

But in my reading about these butterflies on Michael Raupp's blog, Bug of the Week, it says Swallowtails really like parsley, dill and, probably, the carrot tops on which we spotted them in the Government House garden. Monarch butterfly caterpillars like Milkweed, from which they draw the stuff that makes them taste so bad to birds.

No way to tell for sure now which butterfly we were seeing in its caterpillar stage.

But they were cute, anyway.