Yesterday I saw only birds so I already posted those over in the bird thread. But today it was back to caterpillars and butterflies. I saw a Tiger ST today but didn't get a picture.
And some other kind (probably a Polydamas) went flying across the street. And neither left me eggs! So rude.
Now, I was talking about Cloudless and Orange-Barred Sulphurs. If you remember, I have some yellow form Cloudless caterpillars because they've been eating the buds and flowers that my Senna is still producing for some reason. Peak bloom time is around November, but since these have been established, they will bloom into April. I expect they'll stop soon. Anyway, the caterpillars can be very similar. And I happened to find one of each today when I was picking food so that was fortuitous. Here's the Cloudless yellow form. The blue forms rings around their body.
Whereas the blue on the Orange-Barred cat forms an actual pattern.
Now, I'm going to take a minute and talk about something that happened today that I'm not too proud of. Because it's important to learn from our mistakes and I did something that I knew better than to do. I was taking all the Sulphur cats out of the Critter Keeper to dump the old food and frass. I use a layer of cheesecloth on the top so I set that to the side and then set the caterpillars on it. Then, I had to put them back in the tank. Well, Sulphurs DO NOT like letting go of things. I usually break sticks off the plant when I collect them. Well, one was clinging to the cheesecloth and he was right at the edge. I had to move him or the lid would have closed on him. I was feeling hurried and instead of waiting for him to climb up my finger, I grabbed him and pulled. And one of his prolegs clung to the cheesecloth but the rest of him came, now bleeding from the wound. Yeah, I killed him because caterpillars don't recover from that. So please be more careful than me when handling Sulphur cats, in particular. It's often easier to break off a leaf or stem or whatever no matter what kind of caterpillar you have. It keeps you from getting stinkhorned, accidentally moving a molting caterpillar, or fatally injuring one like I did. So let's all learn from this.
Okay, back to the pictures. Here's one of those Skippers I haven't learned yet.
Weird angle of a Duskywing feeding.
Gulf Frit caterpillars getting transported to the bigger passion vine. I found one more cat after I took the picture. And no, these guys don't sting you despite the scary-looking hairs.
And here's the American Lady prowling my Critter Keeper a few minutes ago. As soon as I opened the lid, that butterfly was gone!
