Wow! It's so much fun seeing butterflies from different parts of the world. I get excited when I go visit Grandma in West Virginia and see different kinds, but tropical butterflies sure are something special, aren't they?
I had a pretty good day at the museum. It was pretty wet even though the weather lady said there was a low chance of sprinkles last night. It managed to sprinkle all over my yard, too. It was overcast, so no butterflies were flying but I did find some caterpillars. Six Monarchs and four Cloudless Sulphurs, to be exact. And some of those Monarchs were massive! I also pinned a bunch of chrysalises. We have little boxes with styrofoam on the lids that we pin the chrysalises to and we put them in the window so people can watch the butterflies emerge. I'm not sticking pins in chrysalises - don't get the wrong idea! I need to take a picture one of these days so you guys know what I mean. But while I was pinning the chrysalises, I noticed they were pretty big. I had Zebra Longwings and Monarchs and they just seemed noticeably larger than they have been. My theory is that the new spring growth on the plants has more nutrition in it so the caterpillars are growing bigger. I could be wrong, but that's my theory.
Now for some pictures! As I was leaving this morning my milkweed to the left of the doorway had three cats on it. Mom said there were three, but I had only seen one until this morning. They're kind of hard to miss - look at how big they are, not to mention the frass they're leaving everywhere! I have two more big guys on the milkweed to the right of the doorway.
One of the Orange-Barred Sulphurs I brought in emerged today! This one is a male, but you can only tell that when he opens his wings (which he wasn't going to do for a picture). But trust me, I saw it.
Zebra Longwings in love...
And Zebra Longwings roosting.
This Julia was in the same tree as the Zebra Longwings. When I went to take the picture, I hit a branch and the Zebra Longwings scattered. Kind of a rude way to wake them up, but it was an accident. Glad I got their picture first, though!
Not too many Monarchs in the flight cage but that should change based on the number of chrysalises I had today.
And this is a Long-Tailed Skipper who lost his tails (it happens). Better to lose one's tails than one's entire body!
