Ridesredmule said:Did you knock them off?

I wouldn't do that... I want the butterflies...
those caterpillars weren't hurting the brug.

I cut the leaf off with the little cat on it and put them in a pile in the shade. They can have that leaf. They don't seem to mind much. This year I plan to put a plant box together just for them where they can munch away happily.

Rhaps

Rhapsody616 said: I would love to LOVE to plant a little something somewhere in my yard so they can go to town and go munch happy. So if you don't mind a little more guidance please tell me what plants will work for the eggs and caterpillars

I just found a super comprehensive list of butterfly host plants...
35 plants listed for the buckeye butterfly!

It's a document, so you'll need to print it out... 17 pages with my machine...
find the "butterfly caterpillars and their larval plants" link on this "Gardeners of Southwest Florida meetup page of 2 files...
http://www.meetup.com/FloridaG...

Took a bit of searching to get to the page of files from google's link... but I'm not going to post a direct download link...

May have to take their recommendations with a pinch of salt... They've listed fennel, passionflower for the monarch ... a bit of careful editing woulda placed those plants with the correct butterflies.

The caterpillars of the black swallowtails that eat my fennel really look a lot like monarch caterpillars so maybe that's where they made the mistake.

I do see the monarchs fluttering around my passsion vine these days, too. Although they don't seem to land for long. Maybe they go for nectar from the flowers?

The fritillary butterflies use passiflora, and lotsa peeps see an orange butterfly and assume they're seeing monarchs...

But...someone writing a list of host plants shouldn't make that mistake...

I continue to think the problem is the common one of editing... or the even more common one of "the Internet is mostly cut and paste wrong." to quote Green Deane.

Yes, I see the frittilaries all the time too. They are quite a bit smaller than the monarchs.

I still have butterflies... And while they don't usually visit the brugs... this was too cool not to share.

Great picture.Thanks for sharing.