I tried to take some pictures in my yard yesterday but no one was cooperating. The Cassius Blues won't hold still. I saw a Long-Tailed Skipper and another large skipper but I couldn't get a decent picture of either. The weather here is very cloudy and it's supposed to rain this afternoon. And then it's supposed to rain for the next three days. I'm not even kidding about that. Three straight days of rain in the winter? This continues to be a strange year.
So today at the museum not many butterflies were flying even though it was in the low 70s. It was just so cloudy. But I still got some good pictures to share with everyone. I also met a family from Estonia! Luckily, I knew that the shortlist for nominations for the Best Foreign Film Oscar just came out and the entry from Estonia was on it. So I looked like a somewhat culturally aware American, I hope. They were using AirBnB to stay at a person's house in St. Pete so I told them to go to the Dali Museum. They're doing a special exhibit on Dali and Picasso and their influence on each other's art. I'm going to go after the holidays.
But back at my museum I had the Imperial Moth caterpillar out and was scaring people with it. I had a few brave souls who wanted to hold him or touch him, including my new Estonian friends. There's only one left that hasn't pupated. But speaking of those that have pupated, I checked on them to make sure they were all right after last week. My bosses added some leaf litter on top of the loose soil I had in the tub. Here you can see the pupa is kind of reddish on this moth. Right above the pupa are the anal prolegs of another caterpillar that shed its skin. Also, I took a picture where you can see the shed skin that I pulled off the pupa. And these pupa do move when you disturb them!
Here's some Zebra Longwings roosting like they do.
I released quite a few Julias. They have blue eyes! I keep confusing guests who think I've named the butterflies (kids think this a lot). And I have to tell them, "No, that's literally the name of the species." The latin name is Dryas julia.
We had one very tattered Monarch in there. I couldn't get a good shot because it was on the backside of a hanging basket. So this is me twisting the hanging basket with one hand while awkwardly taking a photo with the other. The Monarch cats I brought last week got really big so we should have more Monarch butterflies soon.
This Malachite was hanging from the bottom of a basket. And another one was nicely showing the top of its wings so I could show guests the difference.
I thought we were all out of Atalas but I found this one caterpillar on the coontie. He's going to be all alone, though!
My friend Dominic stopped by and talked me out of a few caterpillars. I asked him if I looked like Santa Claus. I cave easy, but there are some things he can't talk me out of. Like, if he can't name the host plant and confirm he's growing it at his house, I won't let him have it. Here he is hamming it up with a Gulf Fritillary I had released a little earlier.
That Eastern Black Swallowtail was still in there but I could never get a good picture. While I was talking to a guest, it naturally took the opportunity to keep landing on my shirt. Since this is a male, I think it wanted the salt from my sweat. Here's a picture of it from this morning when it was still hanging out on the screen.
And finally, here's the underside of that Gulf Frit. They always look white in the photos, but are actually a silvery color when the sunlight hits them. If you've never seen one, come visit us down South and you'll be sure to spot one. They're the most common butterfly in the Tampa area. I had a guest from Orlando saying how she was growing passion vine and kept getting butterflies around it and orange caterpillars so I told her they were Gulf Frits and pointed out the one in the flight cage. She was proud that she had her passion vine for three years and hadn't killed it! She bought it at the UF butterfly exhibit that I still haven't been to (soon, I promise!). I told her that was a good reason to go with native plants - they are very hard to kill.
