You know, I counted and I saw 15 different species at Orlando Wetlands Park. It never seems like that many until you actually count. I submitted all but one to BAMONA because the picture wasn't good enough. It was one of the Skippers.
I went to MOSI on Sunday but it was cold! Like, 36 degrees cold! We had the heat lamp on, of course, in the flight cage. Plus, the heat on in the lab. But I still had to go outside and pick some food for the critters. We're warming back up, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow and Thursday so still not good butterfly weather.
I have pictures, though! When I first walked in I was a little confused. The pop-up on the top had Malachites flying around in it. I got the stepladder out and was thinking about releasing them until I saw the set up inside. It was a breeding tank. They had fruit slices to feed the butterflies and Green Shrimp Plant for them to lay eggs on. Most of the butterflies had died, but there were still three that I counted alive. Two of them kept flying around as I worked.
Usually the boss puts a sign on tanks like that saying, "Do Not Release". Glad I figured it out; I hadn't had my coffee yet so I wasn't running on all cylinders.
I couldn't find many butterflies in the flight cage and I could only get a photo of a couple. The Zebra Longwings were too high up and it was dark. There were some Monarchs that I could get to, though.
The only other live specimen I saw was one of the Spotted Oleander Moths but it was too high up, as well. I did find this deceased Cloudless Sulphur. I think it died of old, not cold. It's pretty rough looking. And we haven't had many Sulphurs lately, either.
One of the Monarchs got out into the outer enclosure and then died right on top of the flight cage. Since people get all freaked out about dead butterflies, I took a net and pushed it up against the screen until I "bounced" the butterfly far enough over to fall off. Sometimes, my job is not so glamorous.
Back in the lab, things were happier. The bosses must have made a trip to the butterfly farm because we suddenly have hundreds of chrysalises that weren't there before. And of course, we're still growing our own. Like this Malachite caterpillar who was in his J.
This is what a finished Malachite chrysalis looks like.
I also spotted a Zebra Longwing in its J position.
I had a few Zebra Longwing chrysalises that looked ready to emerge at any minute, but I advised them about the weather. See how you can see the stripes through the chrysalis?
As for the Zebra Longwing tank, there was a Gulf Fritillary in there. Because they eat the same host plant, we often get renegade caterpillars sneaking in.
Gulf Frits are orange with black spines, Zebra Longwings are white with black spines.
Just for fun, I took a picture of one of the Luna Moths. Most of them are in cocoons with leaves around them, but we have some that are just the silk. My boss might have done that so people could see what they look like. Isn't it cool?
Even though it was cold, I took one of the small mesh pop-ups with me. I refer to them as "caterpillar carriers", although we use them for other stuff, too. I went to pick milkweed and you can see what I returned with.
I actually found about ten, but they're pretty small and some are on the undersides of the leaves.
And in sad, but educational news, I was cleaning the dishes and the bosses had left some chrysalis boxes that had diseased chrysalises in them. Like this Monarch. This Monarch was parasatized. The chrysalises do get darker when a Monarch is about to emerge, but if you can't see the wing pattern, or the colors aren't uniform, you've probably got a diseased one. I know this one was parasatized because the parasite was in the bottom of the box. See that little thing that looks like a small bean? That's a fly larva. Generally, you'll get between one and three that come out. They come out of the chrysalis on white "strings" which you can sometimes see. At first, the larva are white and soft and look like mini-grubs. But they pupate into this brown thing you see, and after a few days, a fly comes out. Don't worry, I squished it. It will never harm another butterfly!
