That is a Leopard Moth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Wonderful, thanks Dave.

Dave beat me to it. (Hey, I have to sleep at some point.) Their caterpillars are those Wooly Bear kind. I've seen them a few times and we did raise one at the museum just for kicks one time. I think it was winter and things were kind of slow. That is a little unusual about it being on the floor. I would say either it's very new or very old. When I release new butterflies at the museum lots of them head for the cement even though I have instituted a "Zero tolerance policy" on landing on the ground. No one wants to be stepped on!

Ok, time for a few pictures. First, I was playing with my Spicebush Swallowtail because, why not? By the way, my aunt in WV posted a picture on her Facebook feed the other day of a Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly. She said my uncle reports they have spicebush growing along the river bank, but since lots of plants are called that I won't be sure until I visit next month. I can confirm they have tons of Sassafras in the area so the Spicebush ST is fairly common.



Outside to pick food there were the usual suspects. Zebra Longwing on firebush. They do eat other plants, but they prefer firebush. I wonder what it tastes like to them?



The Gulf Frit was liking those pentas I was complimenting the other day.




I found another Polydamas because (say it with me, folks), "There are always more Polydamas."



I was moving a Monarch over to the Giant Milkweed and looking around for the other cats I knew were on it. Instead, I found something bad, but educational. Some mysterious bug was sucking the juices out of my poor, dead caterpillar. If anyone knows what this bug is, I'd be grateful. I can't recall ever seeing one before. I took my vengeance out on him with the soles of my platform sandals. He won't be hurting any caterpillars ever again. (Sniff, sniff.)



To leave you on a happy note, my three Spicebush eggs hatched. Hopefully, this group will do better than the last. I still have that one left and while he eats and moves around, he still isn't growing. It's most odd. I'm thinking there must have been some kind of genetic problem. I collected them as eggs so I'm pretty sure they couldn't have been parasatized. I may have to google this...

Melanie, put that photo on Janet's Cubit for ID --- she'll tell you what that bug is lickety split!
http://cubits.org/buglife/thre...

Thanks Ann, I just posted it! Odd that in all my years of raising butterflies I can't recall seeing a bug like that before. I guess that's a good thing for the caterpillars' sake!

Thanks for the ID, Dave and Melanie.

Now, anybody else wondering why a night flying moth would be blazing white like that? You'd think they'd have been extinct long since, with no protective coloring at night. Maybe they pollenate only white flowers? Hmm, I do have lots of white flowers open right now. My white Cordia is in bloom, and it's right next to the shop.

I'm waiting until it gets dark to see if I can catch some pictures of him with his wings spread. Dave's link says his belly is blue and orange!

I've seen that moth here also. Never seen its belly, however!

dyzzypyxxy said:Thanks for the ID, Dave and Melanie.

Now, anybody else wondering why a night flying moth would be blazing white like that? You'd think they'd have been extinct long since, with no protective coloring at night. Maybe they pollenate only white flowers? Hmm, I do have lots of white flowers open right now. My white Cordia is in bloom, and it's right next to the shop.

I'm waiting until it gets dark to see if I can catch some pictures of him with his wings spread. Dave's link says his belly is blue and orange!

Awesome Patch pic Linda.
Several years ago came across a couple of Leopards resting on a mineral specimen in a rock shop just north of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Beautiful.

From 2004 -

For those not on Cubits, here was Janet's reply about what was eating my Monarch cat:

Hi Melanie!

It's a nymph of a stink bug in the family Pentatomidae, a predatory bug. It's a real shame it's feeding on the Monarch cat! I wonder if the cat. had already expired for some reason, it seems a small nymph like that wouldn't be able to kill a cat. of that size off so easily. They use a long feeding tube to stick their prey, then suck out the juices, they possibly inject some sort of liquidising substance first but I'm not sure about that.

It looks like Podisus maculiventris, Spined Soldier Bug which will have it's uses as they will keep other bugs down.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu...

Hi folks! I'm operating on very little sleep so as soon as this post is done I'm taking a nap! In good news, the blistery-things on my poison ivy rash have dried up. It's just scary and red right now. Doesn't hurt. I had to go get my allergy shots today and I wondered if I should be doing that with a poison ivy rash but I took a Zyrtec and I seem to be good. I've got a mix of caterpillar and butterfly shots for you all today so let's get started!

I searched the Senna ligustrina since I knew there were eggs on it. I found these two cats near each other and brought them inside. They could be Cloudless or Orange-Barred Sulphurs. When they're that small, who can tell?



I saw a bunch of sulphurs flying around when I pulled in so I went out to see what they were doing. I cropped this photo and sent it to BAMONA for ID. I think I can tell the difference between a Dainty Sulphur and a Barred Sulphur now. I believe this to be a Dainty Sulphur. There were three of them flying around.



I also cropped this photo of an unknown skipper that was flying around disturbing the Dainty Sulphurs.



Doesn't this Gulf Frit look great?



Now, the other day you may remember the BAMONA folks confirmed my strange sighting as a White Checkered Skipper (probably female). To remind you, here is a picture.



Today I saw the more common Tropical Checkered Skipper, although I submitted the pics to BAMONA because I want to be sure I can tell the difference. As you can see, the Tropical one has a distinct blue tint whereas the other does not.



The Zebra Longwings were on the firebush, as usual.



Back in my room it was feeding time which meant caterpillar poses! Here are three of my Spicebush cats. Obviously, there's the big guy I found on Sunday. At bottom is the caterpillar that just won't grow, although right at this moment he's crawling around which is a good sign, I guess. And to the northeast of that little hole in the leaf you can see a baby that hatched like two days ago. The lighting in my room sucks and I'm avoiding my family so I can't take pictures in the kitchen.



Long-Tailed Skippers have a horrible death rate, even in captivity. Not as bad as sulphurs, but close. I know one died so far, but today I was lucky enough to find three while I was adding the new food in. I moved all three to a new leaf since they weren't molting and I'm trying to help. Here's two of them on one leaf. They're tiny! It's a good thing their heads stand out against the green of the plant or I would never find them!



I thought the Polydamas were devouring stem, as per usual, but they're having a molting party. They like to do things as a group.



Now, if you're lucky like me, you get Polydamas and Pipevine STs in your area. I already talked about the egg color difference, but what about once they hatch? Well, they're very similar, and they both love to eat stem. Seriously, right now I've got the Pipevine tank sitting on top of the Polydamas tank and they're both attacking the stems. Now, it's hard to tell the difference when they're very little, but as you can see, once they get big enough (at least by the third instar) the Pipevine ST has super long tubercles (those fleshy-antenna thingies) in the front. That's the easiest way to tell. Pipevine cats are a little darker but they can change color near their molt, as do Polydamas, so the first pair of tubercles is the easiest way to tell what you've got. Here they are on my hand (yes, my hand again). Sorry I couldn't line them up better, but you try caterpillar wrangling sometime!



In final good news, my boss at MOSI said she has like 50 Regal Moth eggs so I should be able to show you those Hickory Horned Devil cats until I go on vacation in mid-July.

Oleander moth... I need to keep them controlled or they wreck havoc in my backyard, but thr colors are stunning- and then I remember how they mess up my mandevillas and adeniums.

Very impressive coloration.

Sometimes we raise Oleander Moths at MOSI in the cooler months just to have something to display. The caterpillars are somewhat similar to Gulf Fritillaries so I like to educate people on the difference.

I was cleaning out the Pipevine ST tank today and did a good deed. One of my caterpillars was laying on the bottom of the cage kind of on his side. I picked him up and could see that he was about to molt. But he wasn't stuck to any silk! (This is bad.) I found a part of the tank on the side where another caterpillar had really silked up a good patch and I stuck my caterpillar to it in hopes he would stay there. It took a couple tries, but he did! A few hours later, he molted and he's looking good. As for my census, I have somehow dropped from 11 Pipevine cats to 8. I saw number 9 dead in the bottom but I wonder where the other two went. Then again, I don't want to think too hard about that. For Swallowtails, Pipevines sure have a bad survival rate. Remember all those eggs I had? And I'm down to 8 cats. Still better than none!

Hopefully, I'll have some awesome pictures from the museum tomorrow. I think I'm going to take my Spicebush cat as a demonstrator - but he's definitely coming back home with me! Everyone likes Spicebush cats - they're too cute!

Well, I only spent two hours at the museum today because I didn't sleep well last night so I'm really tired and the heat was really bothering me today. Luckily, one of our volunteers has been coming in on Saturdays (I think her son spends the summer with his dad) so I don't have quite as much to do on Sundays.

My boss was all excited to have those Hickory Horned Devil cats but I think she must have them at home because they're not at the museum. We do have a full-grown Regal Moth, though (that's what a Hickory Horned Devil turns into). She's a female and she laid a TON of eggs on the screen. Moths do that for some reason. I don't know why. The Polyphemus moths will lay eggs on the screen, too. I guess if there isn't a plant they like, they just lay anywhere? No idea. Anyway, she laid them really high so I had to get the stepladder out and move some flower pots so I could get to them. Here's some pictures where you can see her and the eggs (those white spots) underneath.



And some pics of her.



Here's all the eggs I collected along with a close-up. The darker eggs I think have "hardened off" whereas the white globular-shaped ones were more recently laid.



Now, for the butterflies. There are still Monarchs, of course.



And still more Zebra Longwings.



While I was on the step ladder this Black Swallowtail was right in front of my face so I took the opportunity. I also found like 30 Black ST cats out in the gardens. They're all over our parsley this year!



This Orange-Barred Sulphur is definitely a male. I had some kids that had trouble finding him because he was blending in with the tree so well. I told them that was the point - camouflage!



And I did take my Spicebush ST cat and showed it off to a bunch of kids who thought he was really cool. He stayed in his little leaf home all last night and this morning but I guess he didn't like the drive home because he came out and he's still out. So here he is in my room.

Nice sized moth.

Is it just me or does there seem to be fewer butterflies around this year? I only got interested in them about this time last year and it seemed as if the yard was full of them. I have seen very few so far this year. I've seen Tiger Swallowtail, Red Spotted Purple, Pearl Crescent, Question Mark and Great Spangled Frittilary and only a couple of each of those. Did see this Clouded yellow on the Zinnia.

Nice capture Dave. I've been too busy weeding, weeding, weeding to be cognizant of the BF pop. here.

Dave, this has been a weird year for my area. I wouldn't say we have less butterflies, but their usual timing seems to be all messed up. Like today at MOSI, my boss had a Sleepy Orange in a tank. Now, she said it came from some Privet Cassia starter plants she had so they may have come from a plant supplier located somewhere else. But usually Sleepy Oranges are a butterfly I associate with late summer and early fall. The Orange-Barred Sulphurs seemed really early this year and may even be outnumbering the Cloudless in some areas. The Long-Tailed Skippers took forever to show up, it seems. I always think the Swallowtails are late, but I think they were right on time this year; it was just me that was impatient.

We had a very mild winter and it was much wetter than usual so I suppose that affected the butterfly emergence schedule. I did have my first ever sighting of that White Checkered Skipper last week and last year was the first time I ever saw a Great Southern White in my yard. So there may be some gradual changes taking place. In good news, I read where the Monarchs have reached Canada so I think they're on track this year. In fact, Chip at Monarch Watch is predicting this will be a better year for them than last. Although last year was pretty bad so I don't think he's risking much on that assumption.