Well, I went to the museum for about an hour this morning but not much was happening since my car said it was 46 degrees outside! But I freed some butterflies and freshened up the food for the caterpillars. And of course, I took pictures. I think I'm getting better with this camera but I need to read more about the macro function. There's also some function that focuses when you have a subject that is moving so I need to find out more about that, too.

There's a bunch of Julias in the flight cage right now and I released six more this morning. They don't usually come this far north, but my boss trades with some people she knows. I'm not sure what's going on in that second picture. At first I thought I had some mating going on, but then I saw they were just hanging out on the same spot on the plant. Julias don't normally roost together (that's their cousin, the Zebra Longwing) but maybe these two liked the same spot and neither was willing to move?



And speaking of their cousin, the Zebra Longwing...



All the Atalas appear to be gone, but we still have Malachite butterflies and cats. I even picked some eggs today. I sort of wondered what would happen when we had a couple of cold snaps.



As usual, many butterflies were hanging out on the ceiling where the sun comes up. We had a few Monarchs including this one.



We also had a few Sulphurs but they were at odd angles so the only one I could really get was this (probably female) Orange-Barred Sulphur.



I had been taking pictures of the Imperial Moth cats each week to document their growth but since I've been sick I missed two weeks. They got really big in the meantime. Also, they're one of those cats that does not like to let go of their stick and will throw up on you (technically regurgitate). Sulphurs, Whites, and Skippers are also very bad to do this. It's a defense mechanism so I can't blame them, but being thrown up on by a caterpillar isn't really the way I wanted to start my morning. The things I do to get you guys pictures. So that green stuff on my hand is where he regurgitated on me. By the way, Imperial Moths come in several colors and we have the brown variety as you can see. Many books show the other colors. My "Caterpillars of North America" book shows four different colors so they can be a hard one to identify. As you may recall, we acquired these when an unknown guest left a baking pan full of eggs in the lab for us.



This Julia kept crawling around so I couldn't get a clear, focused picture. Going to have to play with those camera functions. But you get the idea.



I also released a Buckeye but I couldn't get a picture of it. Sneaky little thing. So despite it being 50 degrees when I left, I went to Starbucks and got an Iced Vanilla Latte. They did warm up my croissant, however. I'm like a backwards Southerner - I like my coffee iced and my tea hot. But Florida is kind of backwards land so I guess I fit. I got home and saw my two Monarch cats still munching away on the Giant Milkweed. I know I said I was going to pull my tropical milkweed, but I think I'm going to keep the Giant Milkweed even though it isn't native. My reasoning is that the Monarchs never seem to lay eggs on it. I think I've seen them do it once or twice, but by and large, they ignore it. However, they will eat it if you put them on it. So I figure it will make for a good back-up emergency milkweed plant.



As I was reaching for the camera cable next to the end table, I heard a rustling from one of the critter keepers that could only mean one thing. Some stupid butterfly decided to emerge. In this case, it was one of my crazy Polydamas. I'm making it stay in there until it warms up a little more. I probably won't be able to get a picture since it will zoom off as soon as I open the cage, but I thought I'd let you guys know. I'm not sure why they didn't get the overwintering memo like everyone else. This has been a weird year, though.

Hope everyone is having a good Black Friday! And I hope you didn't get trampled at Wal-Mart or in a fistfight over the latest electronic gadget! Although, you guys don't seem like those kinds of people. Besides, aren't we all smart enough to order on the internet by now? Make sure to practice food safety with your leftovers (no food poisoning!) and try not to eat too much pie. But I totally won't judge you if you do!

Okay, I just remembered tomorrow is December 1, so I'm going to hold back a picture or two so I can start a new thread tomorrow. But I have plenty to share today so get ready to enjoy! Now, Sony cameras have that little dial on the top and I generally set it to "Intelligent Auto" so I can just point and shoot and not worry. But sometimes when I put it in my pocket, the dial spins and it changes settings without me realizing. My old one was liable to spin to movie setting so that was obvious, but today I took a bunch of pictures on the "P" setting, whatever that is. They seemed to turn out pretty well. I'm still learning, folks.

Well, I had a super weird day today, but we'll cover that in a minute. First, I had a Polydamas emerge the other day like I told you in the last post and I did get one shot of it in the tank before it took off and flew over the house.



Okay, now I'm at the museum. This is what a Buckeye looks like on the underside. Very plain; he's trying to be a leaf.



But this is what he looks like on top! I was standing under the heat lamp so the lighting was a little more yellow than usual.



Lots of Julias right now. I had to put three down due to damaged wings and one didn't even make it out of the chrysalis. But I released five so that was good. I had one I wasn't sure about because one of the wings looked a little weird, but I let it set while I was working and when I got ready to leave I took it in the flight cage and off it went!



I found a Julia cat that snuck out of the cage and ended up on the rake handle!



And I had two Julias where the male was trying hard but just couldn't position himself right to attach. She was sticking her body up but I wasn't sure if she was inviting him or avoiding him. He gave up after about five minutes. You'll never procreate if you give up that easy!



Here's a Zebra Longwing and a Malachite that were hanging out this morning. It was a little cool when I got there at about 60 degrees. But it was about 70 when I left and the sun was real warm.



Malachites prefer overripe fruit. So another one of my glamorous tasks is cutting up food for them.



So I had a weird experience in that I was looking at the asters outside, which are blooming quite nicely. The bees were all buzzing around and then I spotted an Atala! I knew it was an escapee and I caught it and took it back inside. And would you believe my friend Dominic just called me (we missed each other at the museum this morning) and he told me he just caught an Atala outside!? Apparently, they are quite the escape artists. But here's one I released in the flight cage this morning nicely resting on my hand.



And then a Julia decided it wanted to land on my hand, too? Don't ask me what I had been handling. I wash my hands a lot while I'm there so I don't think I had any fruit juice on me. Who knows? But you can clearly see their proboscises (probosci?) tasting me.



I cleaned the Imperial Moth enclosure and oh my goodness - the frass! But first, here's a couple of pictures of the cats. The first one had a weird pattern to him so I took a picture. The second one is molting. I had to move all of them over to the new food today and not one threw up on me! One got the table, but not me!



Now for the frass. It was everywhere! At least I dumped it outside so it can fertilize the plants. One of my environmental group friends on Facebook posted a picture of moth frass a few weeks ago and people were marveling at the geometrical pattern of it. Yeah, even I thought that was weird. But here's a look in case you want to see it. These are Imperial Moths, as I stated, but Polyphemus frass looks like this, too. I think it has to do with the shape of their anal prolegs so I took a picture of the caterpillar's butt so you can see that, too. You guys know you love me. I love you guys, too because no one else wants to talk about caterpillar butts or frass with me. Oh, and I found out we're feeding them Wax Myrtle. I thought it was some kind of oak (my book says they eat oak) so I put some oak in there on Friday and the cats ate it all so I guess they're not too particular.



Now, another weird thing that happened was that I found an Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the rue. Seriously, tomorrow is December! They're supposed to be overwintering! Super weird!



Here's some Malachites that do like flowers. Seriously, everyone likes pentas. If you don't have pentas, get some. They don't like cold and even mine here in Florida tend to die each year unless it's really mild. But you can get them at Home Depot for like 99 cents so just grow them like an annual. The second picture is a Malachite laying eggs on Green Shrimp Plant which I recently found out is invasive in Florida.



Monarchs like pentas, too!



Okay, let's talk Orange-Barred Sulphurs. I found one in the flight cage that was dead and in good condition so I took some pictures. Now, on the side we usually see, you can see all the markings on it. Females are generally more marked up than males. This varies throughout the year, however. This one is a male because when I turn it over, you can see it has the orange "bar" across the top of its wings. It also has orange at the bottom. Females only have the orange at the bottom and usually have grayish-black dots across the bottom, too.



Now, let's look at a female. This one was alive so I couldn't get a view of both sides, but I saw her fly and open her wings and she was clearly female. You can see how she is more heavily marked, especially along the edges of her wings.



And there was a lot of action on this lantana basket so I just took a picture for fun. Lantana is also invasive so be careful about which species you plant! There is a native kind but it's harder to find. I hear a lot of the hybrid cultivars are sterile but check first. FYI, there are two Julias, a Malachite, a Zebra Longwing, and a Monarch in this picture. And that's not counting the Malachite on the wall.



So yeah, sometimes my volunteer job is pretty nice. When I'm not covered in frass or caterpillar vomit, anyway. Look forward to tomorrow's picture! I'll give you a hint. It's a butterfly in this thread, but it came out right before I was leaving so I took a picture while it was super fresh. There's nothing better than a fresh butterfly. There are some species that you will never see in the wild as vibrant as when they first emerge. I even showed it to the teenage volunteer there because it was so awesome. Look forward to seeing it tomorrow! In the meantime, stay warm and use this time to plan your garden for next year!