Unfortunately, I'm horribly allergic to anything with fur. Actually, according to my skin test, I'm horribly allergic to everything except rye grass and fleas. They tested me for 42 things and those were the only two I didn't react to. I get allergy shots but this year has been brutal. Like, the worst since I first developed allergies when I was eight. The rainy season has kicked in now and that seems to be helping but I've had a cough since last Thanksgiving and the pills my allergy doc gave me aren't working. I just had to take a Zyrtec about an hour ago. Luckily, I'm not allergic to caterpillars but sometimes I wonder about keeping the plants they eat in my room. My room smells like Pipevine right now which is most unpleasant. The Polydamas might get kicked out to the living room soon.

Speaking of Pipevine, I found some eggs on the Wooly Pipevine today. Except, like last year, they're Long-Tailed Skipper eggs! I'm not sure how Wooly Pipevine fools them into thinking it's a host plant. LTS use bean and pea family stuff and Pipevine clearly isn't in that family. The texture of the leaves is quite similar to green beans, but I always thought butterflies scratched the leaves with their feet and then used the receptors on their legs to "smell" the plant. Pipevine clearly has its own smell and a different chemical makeup so I'm not sure how this fools them? But when it happened last year I Googled it and I saw where it had happened to another lady and she emailed an entomologist at UF about it and he confirmed they would lay eggs on it but they would not survive. So I brought the eggs in (five of them) and put them in the tupperware with the LTS cats and eggs I already have. So I guess that's my good deed for the day.

No pictures from me today but Dad took one while he was out at the log lot where the company he works/volunteers for keeps their wood. Dad's a woodturner so he gets paid in wood a lot. (Glen, if you're reading this he knows where there's a Burdekin Plum and the homeowner is thinking of taking it down and they're all salivating over the thought of getting the wood. I found it was native to your area and I thought about you.) Anyway, he saw this White Peacock which he says is his favorite butterfly but nearly every year he sees one and tries to describe it to me in the worst possible way (he's a little colorblind) and every year it takes me like an hour to figure out he's talking about a White Peacock.

Melanie, I know it well! I grew up eating them. Thinking of them brings back memories. As you know, it is a highly valued timber by wood turners.

Lunchtime

Ugh, I don't want to see any more Black STs today. I must have picked fifty eggs if I picked one, along with four caterpillars, and I netted an egg-laying female. And we have three tanks of them in the lab and I had to go cut so much parsley to feed them. We also have a few gazillion Polydamas at this point. I also found a bunch of Monarch caterpillars and some Orange-Barred Sulphurs. So a pretty successful day at the museum. But tiring.

But first I took those Zebra Longwings (which hatched) off of my Corkystem Passion Vine and to the museum. My other passion vine is tore up from the Gulf Frits so I figured I better take the refugees to the museum where they can live happily. We have tons of Zebra Longwings there, too. Here's a picture of the little guys.



So I made it to the museum and you know all those Regal Moth eggs I collected last week? They hatched! Here's some close-ups along with a look at the tank so you can see just how many we have. They're eating Sweetgum right now.



Now, for some butterflies. Here's a Gulf Fritillary in the flight cage.



One of the many Zebra Longwings.



The Eastern Black Swallowtails are looking a little ragged.



Still plenty of Monarchs. I picked about twenty Monarch caterpillars today.



And my boss must be trading with butterfly farms because we have Julias again.



Out in the parsley patch I was picking eggs and found a couple of really huge cats. It's funny how well they can blend in with the parsley, though.



We also mysteriously acquired some Buckeyes and I took a picture because just look at the electric blue accents on them. How cool is that?



We have some White Peacocks in the lab but they're still eggs right now. We haven't raised those in a long time so it's cool to have them again. But when I pulled in my own driveway, I had one flying around the front!



So I was utterly exhausted after three hours of caring for caterpillars at the museum. So naturally, I got to come home and take care of my own caterpillars. It never ends! I was picking some butterfly pea for the Long-Tailed Skippers and I found more eggs and caterpillars. Here's two pictures. One is the small shelters they build when they're small - and yes, there are caterpillars in all three of those homes. The second picture shows how they move up to bigger homes when they get bigger. I've got two caterpillars living in them.



And my first Pipevine ST built its sling!



In other news, there was one plant with eggs on it and a few tiny hatched caterpillars in the lab at the museum and I have no idea what the plant was or the eggs. I'm gonna ask my boss so I'll post the picture and let you know what they are when I find out. The eggs looked similar to one of the White butterflies, but I'm not sure. Also, my first Polydamas batch are really big right now and it's going to be gut purge city here in a day or two. I cleaned the cage today in preparation but I expect it to get nasty real fast.

Deleted. I posted in the wrong forum.

I saw a little butterfly that I couldn't get a good look at... Tops of the wings light blue, undersides white. And when it rested it folded its wings so I couldn't see the blue. What I it?

Most likely a Spring Azure but could be an Eastern Tail Blue. Based on your description I would bet the Spring Azure. Look down the page on this link about mid way down left side.
http://www4.uwm.edu/fieldstati...

Dave, I like your birds but I think one of us is in the wrong thread. I just woke up, though. It may be me.

I just got an email from one of my favorite local nurseries that is trying to give away Black Swallowtail caterpillars to a good home. They emailed about two weeks ago with the same problem except it was Monarchs. And speaking of Monarchs, I forgot one picture earlier. This guy is likely in his wandering phase and has wandered right up to my parent's bathroom window which is a popular spot. You can see the empty chrysalis to the right and there's actually another empty one to the right of that!

Nope Melanie it is me in the wrong thread. Geez that second Margarita must have been a real good one. Apologies to all.

Well, you got three thumbs up so I guess we liked it, Dave!

In bad news, one of Silver-Spotted Skipper cats is clearly dying. He's writhing around and laying on his back. I've seen cats do this before and it never ends well. There's another one acting a little funny but the other two still seem fine. I'm worried though, and I hate to see a caterpillar like that and know I can't do anything.

My boss hasn't gotten back to me yet and from her earlier Facebook post she might not get back to me until tomorrow. So here's the picture of the eggs and caterpillar I couldn't identify earlier. Sorry I didn't think to take a bigger picture of the whole plant. It has small purple flowers on it. There were a couple of cats that were slightly larger and green in color which is part of why I think they're one of the White butterflies. But I guess I'll find out soon enough. Until then, feel free to speculate!

Mellie, I'm learning so much with your posts! I wish I could attract more types of butterflies to my small backyard, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate those that visit. Mainly zebra longwings, fritillaries, monarchs and sulfurs. Occasionally the black swallowtail, which is why I was so excited about raising those caterpillars!

The other butterfly emerged overnight. We released it today and I was able to get a semi-decent shot (for a smartphone) as it was flying away.

TennesseeDave said:Most likely a Spring Azure but could be an Eastern Tail Blue. Based on your description I would bet the Spring Azure. Look down the page on this link about mid way down left side.
http://www4.uwm.edu/fieldstati...

I think you're right, gotta be Spring Azure. The other one is way too dark of a blue.
Thanks!

Well, I think all my Silver-Spotted Skippers are going to die. I just put new food in about an hour ago and took the dead cat out. The smallest cat looked weird; the coloring was off but I was hoping maybe it was going to molt soon. The other two looked fine. But now, all three are writhing around so I imagine they will die soon. I usually attribute this kind of thing to poisoning but I don't know how any spray would have ended up on that plant unless it drifted from a neighbor?

In happier news, my mystery plant and eggs from MOSI are a type of Cleome and Great Southern White eggs. So I was right about it being Whites. I also thought the plant looked like a Cleome (aka Spider Flower) but it's not the species I usually see at Home Depot and such so I wasn't sure.

My first Pipevine ST made its chrysalis. It's still a little wet. I had a cat that was hanging out on the stick right above the chrysalis so I moved him so he wouldn't accidentally damage it.



Speaking of the Pipevine STs, I finally had to change their food from A. tomentosa (Wooly Pipveine) to A. trilobata (Trilobed Pipevine). I'm super worried about them. They're eating; let's just hope no one dies. I did lose one the other day so I'm down to eight (including the chrysalis). One thing I've noticed about the caterpillars is that they don't get nearly as fat as the other Swallowtails. They get long, but stay relatively slim. I wonder why?



As a contrast, I was going to take Polydamas cat pictures. The one I picked up must have been cranky because he kept his stinkhorns out for a long time. They get longer than what I show in the picture; he had them fully extended at one point but withdrew them a bit by the time I took the picture. But see how chubby they get compared to the Pipevines?

Does hanging upside down on a stick mean it's about to pupate? (In which case I missed an instar, LOL)

He doesn't look upside-down to me. But as they make their sling, they do turn upside-down to make the silk patch their butt will stick to and then they turn back around and continue silking and eventually make their sling. He does look like he's in a position where he might be pupating. And FYI, I can never keep track of the instars either except the final one, generally. But as far as second and third or whatever, I just call them small, medium, and large caterpillars. Makes more sense to me.

haha, I like it

I guess "upside-down" was the wrong way to say it... he's not head down, just hanging on the underside of the stick.
He's been in that position all afternoon now.

I always figured many of the cats that start writhing around like that could possibly be parasitized. When they stick out their swallowtail stinkhorns without any reason to do so also...although either way it could be other things. Poor things. I've been finding too many Pipevine Stallowtail eggs & cats lately. I've only got a limited amount of host plant foliage for them, so I've had to get rid of some of the eggs, to hopefully avoid cats starving later. Two older cats are going to pupate very soon, that should help. There was a patch of Swanflower plants in the nearest little town, but that vacant commercial building they were in front of was being renovated recently. Of course, the plants were then completely mowed down by the workers, so now I have to rely strictly on my own plants to feed these cats.

Terr, I get what you're saying. Yeah, he's either getting ready to gut purge, or if he's already done that then I'd say he's scouting locations for a chrysalis.

Linda, thanks for the pep talk. It's just weird that they were doing fine for days and then suddenly they all die. That's kind of why I suspect a pesticide is involved. Way back when Dad was still working we had Tru-Green lawn services for a few years. And we always told them to stay out of the flower beds because that's where my host plants are located (for the most part, I've added a few since then). Well, one time I guess they sprayed a little enthusiastically and got my Trilobed Pipvine which was well within the borders of the flower beds. Needless to say, all my Polydamas caterpillars died within about 24 hours doing a similar writhing and sticking their stinkhorns out thing. It's so awful to watch. We fired Tru-Green after that as Dad had retired anyway by then and he figured he could take the job over again. Of course they kept calling for a while trying to get us back and I was like, "Give me the phone! They killed my caterpillars!" Of course, my parents wisely kept the phone away from my emotional self but Mom did explain to them that they had killed an entire batch of my caterpillars after we asked them not to spray the flower beds and how upset it made us. Mom was actually really mad at about it, too. She's my assistant and she gets pretty attached to the little guys, as well. And Polydamas are so hard to kill it wasn't hard to figure out what had happened in this case. I rarely lose one caterpillar! That's the only time I lost all of them (Polydamas, anyway)!

Hope all your Pipevine cats make it! Do yours eat the stems, as well? Mine do, although they're not quite as thorough as the Polydamas in that regard. I always make them eat all of the plant before I give them new food. They usually cooperate with that plan. I'm lucky in that I know I can always either get more host plants from the museum, or just take my extra caterpillars and donate them to the museum. Either way, no one has ever starved to death on my watch.

Here's a cool article about how Monarchs possess an internal magnetic compass to help them migrate: http://news.nationalgeographic...

At noon it still looked like a caterpillar--when I got home from work it was a chrysalis!
Wish I had a better camera, but anyway: