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Black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar and adult. JOHN POTENTE
Marders in Bridgehampton will welcome guest lecturer John Potente on the morning of Saturday, May 17, to discuss black swallowtail butterflies — their life cycle, how they evolved, how to attract them to your yard, what flowers to grow and what activities to avoid — and share videos he has taken over the course of decades showing how they go from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis to adult butterfly.
Potente purchased a 3-acre property in Hauppauge and in the early 1990s and began to convert it into a natural Long Island habitat with forest plants and prairie plants. He said that as a result, scores of butterfly species landed there and reproduced there, the most notable being the monarch butterfly and the swallowtail butterfly.
“Those are the two that really stand out to people, because they’re big, they’re colorful,” he said. “And they attracted me as well.”
Observing what the swallowtails were eating, he got to know the plants that they liked and added more. His interest in plants and plant-butterfly associations led him to join the Long Island Botanical Society and become the society’s newsletter editor for a time.
Potente said he became intrigued by swallowtails’ behavior and watched, photographed and video recorded them. He studied their life cycle and observed how and what the caterpillars ate and their anatomy.
“I had my own little research project going on there, and the grand finale was actually to study the chrysalis, which I found fascinating,” he said. “A lot of butterflies, they go through that pupa stage where they go into the dormancy for a little while as they’re metamorphosing. Since I had so many of these butterflies on the property, I was able to get all the intricacies of the stages.”
To get all the footage that he wanted, it took 30 years, he said.
“All of this footage was taken on Long Island, and the study was done on Long Island,” he added. “It was Long Island plants and Long Island native plants.”
John Potente’s guest lecture on black swallowtail butterflies begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 17. Potente will return on Saturday, June 7, at 10 a.m. for a presentation on pollination. Marders events are free and open to the public. Marders is at 120 Snake Hollow Road, Bridgehampton.
