I was walking past the dry creek near by house when I saw a RA butterfly. It was flitting from plant to plant, no flowering plants nearby, no fruit. So I started checking the Pennsylvania Pellitory out there. And found one tiny whitish egg (at least, I think it is). But google search shows them to be green. Green? How am I supposed to see it? It probably isn't big like the tiger swallowtail egg and other large green eggs!

http://www.butterfliesandmoths...

Same here Linda! I saw an RA flitting around the pellitory in my yard but couldn't get close enough for a look-see to what plant it was on. The pellitory is literally popping up all over my yard and although I tried to find eggs - there was just so much of it I couldn't find anything.

Did the RA lay an egg on the leaf top or underside?

Did you read anything about the egg staying green? Maybe it turns white after white after a day or two? I know the guava skipper and brazilian skipper lay eggs that are light green but they turn to a mauve color after a day or two.

~ Cat

No, I didn't read anything about that. Just googled to get the pics.

I remembered Judy Burris' book "The Life Cycles of Butterflies: From Egg to Maturity, A Visual Guide to 23 Common Garden Butterflis" has the RA life cycle in it.

She says the eggs are green, barrel-like and laid one at a time on the topmost tender leaves of their host plants. The photos in her book look very similar to the shape and color of fresh guava skipper eggs - so that gives me an excellent reference point - now I know what to look for!!!

Which, by the way, I looked over some pellitory and didn't find any eggs...grrrr!!! But there is just too much of that stuff growing wild in my yard.

~ Cat

Well, if they laid eggs on it, for sure it's a pellitory! I'm glad they use pellitory somewhere!

Ah...here is the post I was looking for to post the one egg I did find yesterday. Yep, the egg was green and laid on the top of the leaf.

I tried looking for more today but had too many things to do. The brief scan I did yielded no eggs...but I know if there's one, there's two, and if there's two, there'll be three and more.

~ Cat

Here's a photo of the pellitory cutting with the egg on it - so you can see what the plant looks like.

~ Cat

Red Admiral has formed a chrysalis! Have several more caterpillars to keep feeding. They are little chow hounds! Good thing the pellitory grows wild all over the yard :o)

~ Cat

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in810

Eggs are light green with white ridges…

I'm still trying to figure out what Pellitory is!

Thank for the pellitory pic Cat.... I may have it and false nettle in my yard but it looks like weeds that I would yank unfortunately...good excuse to leave the weeds! lOL!

Sheila...it is a weed :o) and it takes over the edges of my yard. Anywhere the grass doesn't grow it finds a place to spread. It volunteers in potted plants all the time. I used to pull it out but now that I know RAs use it...I leave it alone for the most part...until it gets too invasive - then it gets yanked out...and I drop the ones I pull out onto the live plants along the fence - that way the caterpillars will crawl over to new leaves. Then I pick it up and toss it in the compost.

~ Cat

All you need is a place the pellitory won't get in the way. I have Pennsylvania Pellitory growing wild and sometimes in the flowerbeds too. It dies back in the summertime usually. A few RAs are still hanging around, but I haven't seen any of their cats lately.