Okay, I'm super tired so I'm going to make this quick. Dad mulched the butterfly garden today so I had to supervise. Here's some pictures I caught while I was out and about.

Finally got that Giant ST! It's missing part of its lower wing.



Fiery Skipper, Whirlabout? At least I got a good photo. Maybe I'll try guessing and send it to BAMONA. Also, this thing loves the Tampa Vervain and the Pentas. Kept coming back for more. But here it was basking on the porterweed for a sec.



Speaking of Tampa Vervain...pretty sure this is a Clouded Skipper. Hadn't seen one in a long time and then BAMONA identified one for me last week and I was like, "Duh!"



So Mom and I were chilling in our lawn chairs supervising Dad when I took off running (sort of) while yelling, "Tiger!" No, I was not being chased by a giant jungle cat. It was the first sighting of a Tiger Swallowtail! Pretty sure this is a male so no hope of eggs. Females have way more blue scaling. The picture where it's right in my face was because I had the zoom all the way in and then it flew right in front of me. Also, I guess Dad's Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, all the days of our lives plant is a pretty good attractor. I suppose I'll keep it.



Gulf Frit on the plumbago. It laid an egg on the Passiflora 'Lavender Lady' but I didn't get a picture of that.



I thought they hadn't found the Corkystem Passion Vine yet, but then I saw some chewing and found this little Frit cat. They stay outside because Gulf Frits don't do well in captivity. They tend to get this disease they spread and it gets gross.



That's all for today. Mom and I are going to sit in a cool, dark room tomorrow and try to pretend fairy tales are real. (We're going to see "Cinderella".)

I'm really happy! Finally...some of the milkweeds that went dormant are coming up! So late. It had been making me crazy checking them for new growth and seeing...nothing! Of course, I have a few potted milkweeds that aren't dormant, but this cold winter, every single milkweed in the ground went completely dormant! So they're getting a late start now. The rains help...thank goodness for rain, the spring temps help even more! A Black Swallowtail emerged, so when the precip clears up later, I'll release it. I saw a black butterfly flying around recently, but didn't see it well enough to be sure which kind. I haven't seen any Monarchs or tigers (or any large butterflies other than I already mentioned) so far.

Just give it time, Linda. Last year it wasn't until May that I really saw the Swallowtails in significant numbers. I think there must be so many factors that go into when they come out of their chrysalis, or when butterflies in the south start moving north. I've been doing this eight years now and I swear every year is just a little bit different. And some are a lot different!

Well, I woke up about 11:30 am and was checking Facebook when my boss sent out a message that if anyone working this weekend could bring milkweed to please do so. I wasn't sure if they would make it until Sunday so I said I'd bring some this afternoon. So Mom and I made the trip over to MOSI to check things out and feed some caterpillars.

I had two Orange-Barred Sulphurs make their chrysalises in the window of the lab so the guests and I huddled around as I narrated what it was doing. That was a lot of fun. I also found our first clutch of Polydamas eggs. I forgot to take a picture of the eggs, but I did take a picture of the butterfly! Here's a Polydamas ST on bougainvillea.



Zebra Longwings. That one was just posing on the top of the Kumquat like it wanted its picture taken so I obliged.



Monarchs, of course.



Julias are still flying around.



I couldn't get a good photo of the one Pipevine ST we had. It was the only Swallowtail in the flight cage and it landed right on this guy's chest. I told him he was super lucky.



On the caterpillar front, I promised a better picture of the Queen.



And the Great Southern Whites are finally big enough for portraits.



Everyone on Facebook reminded me that today is the first day of spring so I hope you guys are seeing signs of it, too! The Google Doodle is really pretty today, too. Happy spring and I'll be back with more on Sunday if not tomorrow. But I think I'm going to rest tomorrow. I slept well last night but I'm stiff all over. Now, I'm off to eat spaghetti. Good thing Mom and I worked up an appetite walking around MOSI's garden!

Margaret suggested I post these photos here that I had just posted on The Front Porch. I took these this afternoon. This butterfly was very active.

Ooh, looks like a Giant Swallowtail. Do they have those in Arizona. (Goes to check.) Apparently, you do!

Folks, I posted this on Facebook, but I need to rant for a minute. Thanks for always letting me do so.

I was in the flight cage at MOSI today with a very knowledgeable volunteer and several guests. There was a male Monarch nicely posing so I asked the volunteer if he knew how to tell a male Monarch from female. Despite his vast knowledge, he said he didn't. So I proceeded to tell everyone around how the males have two black dots on their lower wings that are scent glands they use to attract females. The females lack these spots.

Well, as I was in the middle of educating, a little girl kept sticking her hand out right near the Monarch. I didn't want it to fly away when I was in the middle of showing everyone so I said, "Don't get too close to it or you'll scare it and it will fly away." And her mother told me how it was a terrible thing to tell a child that animals would be "scared" of them and that it wasn't a good thing to say about human-animal interactions. I bit my tongue but folks, life is not a Disney movie! The animals don't gather around you when you sing. And we are a freaking SCIENCE museum. It says so right in the name. We are not a petting zoo. Maybe you could teach your child the difference between domesticated and wild animals. I mean, what do you think happens when you go for a walk in the woods? Everything runs from you. If it doesn't run from you, you should probably be scared out of your gourd and assume it's sizing you up or has rabies. Thank goodness I can go hide out in the lab when people are acting that dumb.

Some people
Just let it roll off your back Melanie. She's an idiot & one day her child will touch or grab something she shouldn't & get hurt, stung, bitten or whatever. You can't fix people like that.

I actually tend to have better conversations with older folks. There was a man today who was probably in his late 60's and had (I'm guessing) his grandson with him. He was just talking about how interesting nature was to him and we talked about how he used to know spring had come when the Monarchs arrived. He was from Wisconsin, originally. A lot of older folks actually played out in nature as kids and have a point of reference whereas the kids I talk to are more likely to say they raised one of those Painted Lady kits or they raised Monarchs at school. Those things can be educational, too but there's something about discovering and figuring out things on your own that causes you to learn at a deeper level, I believe. Plus, you could tell the man had fond memories of childhood and telling his mother the Monarchs had come and that meant spring was here.

Also, a lot of these people vote or will one day vote and make decisions and I just try to inform them. I had a family today that was talking about how maybe they could grow a little milkweed near their house after we discussed the danger of losing the Monarch migration. And I was telling the mom how easy it is to grow and that she could find plants or seeds at Home Depot or Lowe's. I told her it was so easy to grow I prefer seeds but if she wanted some instant gratification to get plants. She was worried because she said she kills plants and even my mom was reassuring her that milkweed is hard to kill.

And MOSI's mission statement is "making science real" and I'm just trying to keep it real.

Caught this one at our test garden this morning.

Oooooo laying eggs no less! Go Betsy!

I can't wait to see butterflies in my garden! Have partridge pea and golden alexander seedlings.

I was gonna say Betsy, you know that Sulphur is laying eggs, right? Thanks for pointing it out, Ann. Betsy, is that a type of Cassia or Senna? The leaves look a little different than the species I'm used to seeing and I was curious. And if the butterflies are laying eggs, I'd say your "test" garden is passing with flying colors!

Meredith, here in FL Partridge Pea is mostly used by Sleepy Orange caterpillars. They seem to arrive about the same time the plant blooms - summer and fall. I didn't know the other plant you mentioned so I looked it up and saw it was in the Carrot family. That made me wonder if Black Swallowtails would use it for a host. I found this interesting article about what Black Swallowtails used before we imported herbs like dill, parsley, fennel, etc. http://www.ecosystemgardening.... The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says it is a host for the Black Swallowtail: http://www.wildflower.org/plan... Also, it appears to be a host for something called the Missouri Woodland Swallowtail or Ozark Woodland Swallowtail but it doesn't seem like you'd get those out your way. But let us know if you get Black Swallowtails on it! That would be so cool to see them using a native plant instead of the usual ones we're used to.

The Native Plant Society of Texas lists these native EBS host plants for this state:
Eastern Black Swallowtail

Dutchmen’s Breeches (Thamnosma texana)
Prairie Parsley (Polytaenia nuttallii)
Prairie Bishop’s Weed (Bifora americana)

I would add Daucosma laciniatum, a native they also use here.

All right, butterfly lovers - let's look at some pretty pictures!

Zebra Longwing. This is at MOSI, but I saw my first one in the wild when I got home this afternoon. I was so afraid the freeze we had knocked them back south, but they're here.



In fact, I found an egg on the Corkystem Passion Vine. Only one egg, though. What's up with that? I'm sure I'll find more soon and then I'll be cursing them for laying so many eggs.



But back at MOSI they're also in the mood for love. I posted this in the FL forum. This is not a threesome. In the last year I've seen what I'm assuming are males sniffing around, possibly lured by the female's pheromones.



Monarchs were also in the mood for love.



We don't have as many Julia butterflies but we have lots of caterpillars. It's a cycle, folks.



This is a bad photo of a Queen caterpillar. Our lab has terrible lighting; I don't know why I don't go outside to take pics. Anyway, I wanted you guys to see the bits of red on it because I thought that was cool.



I released a female Orange-Barred Sulphur today.



And a male Orange-Barred Sulphur. They weren't hooking up, though.



The Gulf Frits would not come down off the ceiling. Also



These are the Polydamas eggs I found on Friday. I found two more clutches today. It's actually kind of weird that our first Swallowtail eggs are the Polydamas. We could be in for another weird year, folks.



The Monarchs I'm raising at home are getting a lot bigger. Also, I got egg-bombed again. Proving Monarchs will use the native A. tuberosa if Tropical Milkweed is not around.



And this moth was on the back porch so I'm going to send it to BAMONA and see what they say.

Mellie (all), I will let you know if the butterflies use the native plants. Last summer, I got seriously hooked into butterflies, so I'm expanding the plantings this year. I didn't get any EBS in Atlanta, but I know they are seen here. So fingers crossed this year. I had some Sleepy Orange visitors, but I did not have a host plant for them so again - fingers crossed.

It is really nice to see the pics from FL to keep all those summer dreams of beauty coming

Meredith, you shouldn't be too far behind us. Okay, maybe a little. I actually haven't seen a Black ST yet, although I've seen the Giant, Tiger, and Polydamas. We've got tons of parsley, dill and rue at MOSI and I've got my rue plants in the ground so we're ready! It would be nice to know of some native plants they would use. I'm going all native with my milkweed and pipevines this year. Okay, except the Giant Milkweed. I'm saving that until my native milkweed seeds germinate and grow. But I'm really trying to go native.

It's so great that you caught butterfly fever! If you click the link in my signature it will take you to the MOSI Outside blog where we talk lots about butterfly gardening as well as native plants and other things. And we're always up for talking butterflies in this thread! Also, planting host plants is the way to go. I always tell people that butterflies will visit your nectar plants, but they will stay for your host plants.

BAMONA says my moth is a Brown-shaded Gray Moth. Accurate, but boring name. Here's the page they have on them. http://www.butterfliesandmoths... Not a lot of info but I Googled it and I see they use oaks, poplars, and willows as hosts. Sometimes, I wonder how my oak trees have any leaves left on them when everything seems to want to eat them.

I see these all the time around here. Glad to know what they are. We have lots of oaks.

mellielong said:We came from here: The thread "February 2015 Butterflies, Moths & Larva" in Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum

My feet are killing me, but I had a good day at MOSI. I netted three Gulf Frits, two Cloudless Sulphurs (in one swing!), and a female Orange-Barred Sulphur. But since spring is in the air, let's start with some mating Zebra Longwings!



We also had some mating Great Southern Whites. I realized we didn't have any host plants for them in the flight cage so I went and found some Virginia Pepper Grass and put it in a container for them.



I tried to stay away from the flight cage today because there were two teenage girl volunteers in there. The one seemed fine but the other must be new and a total idiot because she actually asked me, "Can I touch the butterflies?" (There is a large sign in the flight cage that clearly tells you not to touch the butterflies, caterpillars, or plants.) Then, when I came in with a butterfly in my net to release it, she asked, "Is that a butterfly?" I said, "No", because I'm a smart aleck. Anyway, here's the first butterfly I caught. A female Orange-Barred Sulphur. She never would let me get a good photo and then the Zebra Longwing decided to join her.



Zebra Longwings were everywhere.



And they were laying eggs all over the Passion Vine. I had a young girl who told me she knew what a person who studied butterflies was called and that she knew how to pronounce it. She correctly said, "Lepidopterist." And I told her how good that was. We got to watch a Julia and a Zebra Longwing lay eggs. I wondered how you could tell them apart since I had never seen a Julia lay eggs. And I discovered you can't because they're both yellow. Thank goodness the Gulf Fritillaries are more of a dull orange.



And speaking of Julias.



And here are some Great Southern Whites with their super awesome turquoise antenna clubs.



And here's a Skipper I saw outside.



I caught three Gulf Frits but this is one that was already in the flight cage. The others all freaked out after I caught them and I couldn't get a good picture. But this one is nicely showing off its "little mirrors".



The Cloudless Sulphurs were freaking out, too. One was nectaring on the plumbago outside when the other one came along either to harass or flirt with it. I waited until they were real close and swooped my net and got them both! I also found five Sulphur cats of unknown variety today. They're too small to tell just yet. Here's the only picture I have that's halfway decent of one of the Cloudless Sulphurs. They would not come down from the screen ceiling.



I hope spring gets sprung for you all very soon! I can't wait to see everyone else's butterflies!

What is that beautiful blue flowering plant in the first pic?