See, in my mind J was always "Jay" because I'm not very imaginative. But now I know. And while we're discussing identities, Glen, can I ask if you are male or female? I'm just curious because I try to picture you all in my head.
And Ive, that's great what you're doing with your boys. I've been doing this for seven years now and let me tell you - it never gets old. I was training a new volunteer at MOSI today and she was talking about watching a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis at a butterfly house in her native home of Costa Rica and I was saying how I've seen it happen hundreds of times and it still amazes me.
And since I was training a new volunteer, I spent six hours at the museum today! I'm pretty sure that's a record for me. I'm going to sleep so well tonight!
We had a really good variety in the flight cage today but it poured buckets yesterday (and today while we were there) so most of the butterflies were trying to dry out high up on the screen. So not the best shots of everyone, but I tried. We had a couple of people come in with those super big cameras today. I told the one guy his camera was bigger than the guy that was in the flight cage a few minutes earlier and he said, "That's what counts." That made me laugh. Seriously, I hate to think how much some of those things cost!
Let's start out with someone we have a lot of - the Giant Swallowtail. It happens to be sitting on the one citrus tree we have (can't remember which fruit) but it wasn't laying eggs. Lots of basking today because of all the rain. FYI, this butterfly always gets the most attention from the guests. They always want to know "what the big one is". Another FYI, the Tiger Swallowtail is technically bigger, but they don't let me name the butterflies so I just roll with it.
I promised you Malachites and so you shall receive. Remember I told you my boss got a money-back guarantee on those chrysalises? Well, she's going to have to get her money back because a lot of them were diseased. We had three chrysalises left that were all shriveled up and yesterday one didn't come out all the way (the other volunteer left it in the lab so I could use it as a training exercise for the new volunteer). But here's pictures of the healthy ones. They look totally different on each side.
Lots of Zebra Longwings. People seem to like them because I'm always getting questions about them. A lot of people say they've seen them in their yard so that's a good thing, too.
We had a couple of Buckeyes.
And lots of Black STs now that the caterpillars have made it to adulthood.
Still some Julias.
A few Great Southern Whites (with raindrops). The caterpillars we're raising our starting to make their chrysalises so we should have more in about two weeks.
Pretty sure this is an Orange-Barred Sulphur.
We had a couple of Variegated Fritillaries which got me excited because we haven't had those in a long time. I've only ever seen one in the wild in Florida and it was way in the south part of the county. I live two miles south of the northern border of my county so that was quite a ways from my house. I saw one in West Virginia one April and when I reported it to BAMONA they said how early it was to see that species in that area so I thought that was neat that I caught an early one. All in all, I guess I'm jealous of you guys that have lots of Fritillaries to see. I want to see a Diana one day! But for now, I'll settle for my Variegated Frit.
This is a Cloudless Sulphur - much lighter yellow color.
The Hickory Horned Devil (Regal Moth) caterpillars are getting a little bigger. They sit in the same curled-up position as my Viceroys. I wonder what's up with that?
Out in the garden I pointed out this White Peacock to my new trainee.
And we also saw this Spicebush Swallowtail. A very pretty specimen, too!
That's all for today, folks. I'm tired and boy do I need a shower! Caterpillar wrangling can be a dirty business.
