I saw a dark butterfly on the Vitex this morning...hope it's not an egg-laying Pipevine Swallowtail. The other remaining bunch of cats had only stems to eat toward the end, except for one cat who lasted long enough for the leaves to start coming back. Some of the plants are making a good effort to grow fast now that nothing's continually eating them.

I did just wake up from my nap, but why would a Pipevine ST lay on Vitex? I thought they only laid on pipevine (Aristolochia). Am I missing something?

No, it was only nectaring. I just don't want to go through the starving cat thing again.

Gotcha! I'm pretty lucky that I can always take my refugee caterpillars to MOSI. Or, just pick food from MOSI and bring it home. Pipevine is one of those plants you don't just find growing on the side of the road so it is a lot harder when you run out of food for them. Not as easy to find sources, especially when you have to make sure it's not the tropical pipevines everyone likes to grow because of the showy flowers.

Wow! People are giving me acorns! Thanks Gleni and HamiltonSquare who I've never heard of. You need to stop in and say hello to the group sometime. Now I feel pressured to share more photos so here you go!

Well, my sleep last night was very disturbed so I was up around 7am and went to get the paper. And I noticed I had four Monarch cats on the column in front of the house. As you can see, the milkweed is kind of growing right next to it. Mom pulled that one branch of it under the entryway so the caterpillars wouldn't get rained on or something. I don't know. In the close-up picture, two of them have molted. Later today I checked on them and two were back on the plant, one was still resting after molting, and number four was MIA but he could have been on a different part of the plant. I didn't search too hard.



The Polydamas hatched. Well, the first round anyway. You can see another clutch below them and also all the way to the right on the underside of that stem. Since I took that picture a few hours ago more have hatched. Looks like my bedroom is going to smell like Pipevine for a while. It's no wonder I'm popping Zyrtec like candy.



Speaking of Pipevine, the Pipevine STs are big enough now that they only want to eat stem. I wonder if all Pipevine-eating caterpillars do that?



And I took some pictures of the Viceroy because I wanted to put him on Facebook. And let me just say, it's much nicer opening an enclosure with willow in it. That stuff smells way better than pipevine, and most of the plants caterpillars eat. It's actually a pleasure to open the thing.



And FYI, my therapist was fine; he just had a flat tire he had to deal with. I told him it's not nice to scare people who already have anxiety, though. But in almost four years he's never rescheduled on me, so I went easy on him.

Moth blends in well.

Where the moth?

Tucked in close to the center of the lily.

I see.

Awesome! Camouflage at it's finest!

WOW J great shot!!

Red Spotted Purple

Wow.

I'm jealous again. Love those Red-Spotted Purples. And they love puddling. The first one I ever saw was in Louisa, Kentucky when we were visiting the old family cemeteries. We stopped at a Wendy's to have lunch and as I was eating I could see this dark butterfly out by the parking lot. I was tired so I thought, "If it's still there when we go to leave, I'll check it out." And it was still there and it had been drizzling so the ground was moist. It was puddling in the gravel outside the parking lot; the gravel was a bit smaller than Dave's photo, though. I took so many photos as it is such a beautiful butterfly.

That's one of the hazards of traveling with me - I will chase butterflies anywhere. Tiger Swallowtails nectaring on a thistle outside McDonald's. I found a Black Swallowtail caterpillar in a bunch of Queen Anne's Lace outside a Wendy's somewhere in Virginia. (I was like, "Give me five minutes and I bet I can find one." It didn't take that long.) Even when we were headed to the family reunion one year Grandma had to go to the ER (turned out to be just a UTI but she only has one kidney so we worry). I told everyone, "I'll be just past the parking lot in the field." I saw Monarchs on native milkweed and my first Red Admiral. Grandma was ready to go and my family was yelling at ME that it was time to leave. That ER was too darn fast! Grandma was all apologetic about ruining our day and I was like, "I saw a Red Admiral! It was awesome!" So at least I'm easily amused and can pretty much entertain myself. Although, Grandma still doesn't understand why I wanted to raise a "Catalpa worm". I showed her the picture of the moth it turns into in my book and she was all surprised. And I had to explain the difference between worms and caterpillars (I have this conversation at MOSI at least once a month).

Woooooooooo Hooooooooooooo Dave!

Dave, that great pic illustrates perfectly why people love that kind of butterfly so much! I miss them! Since the drought, there's none here.
Melanie, I'm that way about plants before all else! But also butterflies and caterpillars, birds, hummingbirds, other interesting insects, even rocks, etc.! Yes, I always stop along roads and highways (and get honked at...WHY do idiots DO that?), wander in fields or vacant lots by restaurants or businesses, even going over fences sometimes. If I have my camera, maybe take photos. It's a thing, probably incurable. I can't seem to help it. I stopped today on the way back from taking my cat to the vet to gather seeds by the road. Now I have a bowl of Amsonia seeds. Oh well!

Same here. I thought it was just normal. Love to forage.

Black Swallowtail

An about had it Viceroy

Well, I have pictures from yesterday and today so this might be a long post. So settle in and get comfy!

Polydamas are gregarious in their early stages but they also like to crawl on each other even as they get bigger. Case in point - this picture. It was too funny; I had to take a photo. Judging by the partial stinkhorns, I don't think the one is enjoying it. And just in case we have any newbies lurking - no, caterpillars cannot have sex.



I was nice and cleaned their tank and gave them fresh food. As you can see, they were all lined up against the side. I had nightmarish visions of them all gut purging in one coordinated act, but when I put the food in they quickly dispersed and went back to eating thank goodness.



Meanwhile, the little Polydamas are eating and growing. And I found three more clutches of eggs today. Some may have to be donated to MOSI. Polys just eat too much.



Today, I went out to pick some willow for the Viceroys (more on that in a minute). There are so many Duskywings and Long-Tailed Skippers outside my house and they seem to be flying around and having some kind of war over who controls the nectar. But I managed to get a few to sit still. Here's a Duskywing.



And here's a Long-Tailed Skipper.



Mom was outside with me and as she moved around she scared up a Red-Banded Hairstreak! I see the Gray Hairstreaks more often, but I did have a Red-Banded sighting last year. Very exciting to see one again. Hairstreaks are so cool. I love the way they rub their wings back and forth while they sit.



We walked over to the shade house to see my orchid that just bloomed but on the way is the butterfly garden and as we approached I yelled, "Swallowtail!" Because there was a Pipevine ST on the pentas. Swallowtails LOVE pentas. Now, Swallowtails nearly always flutter their wings as they nectar, but by some miracle this one stopped and posed perfectly for me. And as you can see, this is a female because she doesn't have the irridescent blue scales near the bottom of her wings like the males do. I'll have to keep checking the pipevine for eggs but I didn't find any (but Polydamas) today.



I could hear thunder and Mom and I both felt a raindrop so I figured I better get moving. I had to go to Walgreens, but I took a detour to pick some willow one street over. Willow actually grows in the ditches along many streets in my neighborhood, but the one just south of me is safest because it's a small road with less traffic and there's a nice place to pull over in the grass. And there's a landscaping company right across the street so I suppose if I fell in the ditch there would be someone to hear me yell. Anyway, as I was picking the leaves I found four more Viceroy caterpillars (so I now have seven total)! And I took some pictures to show you what I look for. This rule pretty much applies for Red-Spotted Purples, too. But RSPs eat cherry in my area so different host plant. Look for leaves that are nothing but veins at the end. You might find a caterpillar hanging out on it!



But sometimes they wrap their bodies around the stems as they get bigger. I thought this guy was molting but he totally fooled me and is now wandering around eating. Since I got more cats I upgraded them to a larger tupperware dish.



Viceroys start out pretty small! Sorry you have to see my hands again, but if I don't use them as a background my camera will focus on the plants behind instead. But I can't blame it for not focusing on a tiny leaf vein with a tiny caterpillar on it.



In this picture, you can see the caterpillar has put up what I call a "blockade" between the leaf and the rest of the vein where he rests. I think they silk this together because he can't eat the leaf and make it look like that. This also deters predators from coming all the way down the vein to where the caterpillar lives.



And once I pulled in the driveway this Gulf Frit was on the jatropha. I took this picture while sitting in my car; that's how close I park to my plants.



That's it for pictures, but in good news this crop of Pipevine ST cats seems to be growing much faster than the others. They were really slow and worried me so maybe this bunch is healthier. They certainly have a good appetite. Yesterday, I bumped them up from one leaf to two leaves a day but when I did my caterpillar bed check at 10pm they were out of food! So yes, I went outside at 10pm and picked two big leaves. But now they're all molting so no one is eating anyway! However, the second crop of eggs has hatched so I have little baby cats in there, too. I angled the food near them so hopefully, they'll climb aboard.

Look forward to tomorrow and pictures from MOSI. My boss posted a photo of the Hickory-Horned Devil cats (Regal Moths) and they are getting freaky-looking!