The right stuff for cats...

Anise swallowtail caterpillars, like all other caterpillars, are somewhat picky eaters. They will largely ignore mashed potatoes, soyburgers, filet mignon, and chocolate (or strawberry) milkshakes. They also do not do "low-carb". Good heavens.

They will very much appreciate, however, being placed on any of the following still-living (lush & green) plants as long as these plants have not been sprayed with any pesticide, either natural or artificial: anise, fennel, dill, parsley, carrot, parsnip, Queen Anne's lace, seaside angelica, and citrus trees.Citrus trees?! So it is claimed.

Our experience is mainly with fennel, since it grows around here like a weed [actually, most in these parts consider it to be BE a weed]. We can report first-hand that caterpillars are happy to consume nearly every part of the fennel plant, although we have not offered them mature seed heads. They will happily munch on tender green shoots, ordinary green "leaves", the yellow flowers (not clear if they eat the pollen grains---they probably do), and will even gnaw away on sizeable stems if the preceding more delectable parts have been used up.

The following label (enlarged here 17-fold for human readability) was recently discovered on a towering fennel plant deep in Caterpillar Territory: