Good for you, Margaret! I really like that site when I just have no idea what I'm looking at. Like for example, one time in West Virginia I saw this really bizarre, scary-looking moth. It's called an Abbot's Sphinx. Check out the picture I took.
So I took some pictures yesterday but I got distracted and then I got very sleepy so that's why you had to wait until today. Dad and I went to the movies and I told him on the way home we needed to stop and get some willow for the Viceroys. So yes, I took the caterpillars in their tupperware in my tote bag to the movies and I guess they got bored because they couldn't see it because one of them molted. I suppose he had nothing better to do. Well, when we stopped I gathered some leaves, and I found myself a third Viceroy caterpillar! He was also molting so I had to break the branch he was on. FYI, I know I said they hang out at the end of leaves, but I have found both Viceroys and Red-Spotted Purples when they get bigger will sometimes wrap themselves around a branch. Like this guy that I found (I remembered to take a picture before I got too excited and just added him to the collection).
Here's the guy who molted while not watching the movie. Check out those antlers now!
In other developments, there was this Gulf Frit chrysalis on the passion vine near the garage door that caught my eye last week because it had a little bit of white on it. And Gulf Frit chrysalises are brown. I thought maybe it was a weird quirk, but I looked today and the white had spread. I think it got mold growing on it. I disposed of it as I didn't want it to spread to anyone else.
In other Gulf Frit chrysalis news, I found an empty one on this cherry tree that seeded itself next to my oak tree. It was so far from the passion vine I had to ask Dad how far he thought it was (I suck at estimating distances) and he said 40 feet. Some caterpillar crawled across 40 feet of my lawn to find the perfect place to hide. So many of the Gulf Frits stay on the vine that this was just bizarre. At most, sometimes they crawl up the side of the house where the vine is planted. I guess this one had to be different. At least he seems to have come out okay.
And speaking of Gulf Frits, this one seemed to be posing so I was like, "Fine, I'll take your picture."
And this was a little blurrier than I intended, but see what the Pipevine caterpillars have done to their leaves? Can't accuse them of being wasteful. And I like to put the new leaf under the old one so they can find the food faster. I mean, caterpillars are designed to find food, but why make it hard for them?
