Green discharge from swallowtail cats

Two of my cats have been discharging fluid and eaten plant. cant tell which end its coming out of. both are appearing to be healthy otherwise. Is this normal? Both are in a tank eating flat leaf parsley.

Karen says:
Yes this is normal. Monarch caterpillars do not do this and I wondered as you did if something was wrong, but my experience is that it is normal with the black swallowtail caterpillars.

Comments for Green discharge from swallowtail cats

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Totally normal
by: Moonchild

Usually, they discharge undigested food shortly before attaching themselves.
Discharge
by: mw

Thank you for your response! I am new to this and am doing this for my girls. Ok I'm lying, I get more of a kick out of it than they do. I have a total of 9 cats that I am trying to keep going. They are in the over wintering phase or soon to be, hopefully! My first mature cat started its final phase but stopped. Its been 6 hrs. should I be worried? I would love to see a time laps of the cats before going into this phase!!

Karen says:
I am glad you are enjoying this wonderful hobby! It takes a while (longer than monarchs) for the caterpillar to transform into the chrysalis. I noticed the "batch" I just had were "hanging" in the caterpillar stage for a couple of days before the final shedding revealed the chrysalis. I have only seen the actual transformation (shedding of skin) a couple of times. The timing doesn't seem to be as predictable as the monarch so is difficult to witness.

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