It may be the middle of the night on the East Coast, but I'm awake so it's time to post some pictures. I've been asleep for the better part of two days. For those who are new, I have chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. But these last two days I've slept a lot even for me! But I did manage to feed the caterpillars and get some pictures.
FYI, the Black ST cat that I accidentally squished appears to be fine. I had three big ones in there and two have gut purged with a third looking like he's about to any minute. So he must have recovered. Frankly, all this gut purging is pretty gross. That's one of the reasons when people tell me raising butterflies sounds "so magical", I'm like, "No, it's mostly cleaning up poop." Or frass, if we want to be technical. I only have two Black ST cats left so luckily the purging is almost done. Until some female comes along and lays more eggs, anyway. And if it's that Tiger ST that keeps flying around, I promise not to complain. I will continue to complain about the heat, though. If the weatherman says it feels like 1000 degrees outside, which he did, I think I have the right to complain. And I'm a native Floridian! But it got hot really early this year. I can only take so many months of this weather.
The butterflies, on the other hand, thrive in the heat. Since they're cold-blooded creatures, they need solar power to warm them up so they can fly. I went out to pick passion vine Friday afternoon when I woke up and saw a flash of yellow. I thought it was the Tiger, but it turned out to be the Giant Swallowtail. Unlike the Tiger, who only ate the red pentas, the Giant seemed to prefer all colors of penta.
I was about to walk back in the house when another visitor showed up. This time it was a Spicebush Swallowtail. Known to some as the Green Cloud Swallowtail or the Green Swallowtail, you can see the color on mine is like a silvery-gray-green mix. That means it's probably a male. Some scientists believe Florida has a subspecies of Spicebush Swallowtails due to this coloration. This one didn't nectar as long as the Giant and instead was doing swoops back and forth over the butterfly garden. Not sure what that was about. Maybe he was claiming the territory, which is fine by me.
I had my eye on a Zebra Longwing chrysalis all day (except the parts where I was asleep) so naturally it chose to emerge during the ten minutes I was outside. Since it was almost 5pm by this time and everyone knows that's when we get our thunderstorms every day in the summer, I figured I better keep this one overnight. I let it go in the morning and it flew over to the oak tree to chill. Well, technically I guess butterflies don't chill, they bask. Chilling would be bad. Anyway, here it is in my kitchen where the lighting is way too yellow. The one wing stayed a little wrinkled for some reason, but it flew just fine so I'm not worried.
Saturday morning I went to Panera for a bagel (Asiago is my fave) and this Monk Skipper was already out. It was pretty early but I guess that porterweed was tasty. I can always identify the Monk Skipper by the total lack of markings, the reddish brown color (which is sometimes more brown), but most of all by that super long proboscis. Seriously, doesn't that thing look way longer than it should be in proportion to the body? Also, as a reminder, the Monk Skipper is an import to the state. They host on palm trees so I bet you can figure out how they got here and why they stayed.
Perhaps because it was so early and it hadn't yet gotten hot enough to fry my eggs on the driveway, the Monk actually opened its wings and basked a little. I don't think I've ever seen one with its wings open so that was cool.
Ugh, my Black ST moved so I just looked and it totally gut purged. Now it's going to enter the wandering phase which is where it crawls around and on top of everything looking for the best place to pupate. I've been moving most of them over to the pupation chamber (as I've been calling the critter keeper with all the chrysalises in it) but I think I'll leave this one in the critter keeper he's already in. I am going to have to clean that thing when I'm done typing.
Oh, funny story. The runt of my Black ST litter was molting the other day. He was actually on a stem so I just broke it off and was cleaning the tank and put new food in there and all. Later in the day, I noticed there was a caterpillar above him that looked like it was going to gut purge. I thought, "I should probably move the little guy" and then I promptly fell back asleep. So poor little guy who was trying to molt got gut purged on. This is not the first time this has happened. So while I was cleaning the tank (again), I took him over to the sink and rinsed him off. Caterpillars really do not like this and they will stinkhorn you but you have to tell them it's for their own good. I patted him dry with a paper towel and he's fine now. I still felt pretty bad for him, though.
Speaking of caterpillars, my Io Moths are molting and getting bigger and fuzzier. But don't let that be a temptation because they will sting you! They have urticating hairs that break off in your skin. (Side fact: Nettles are in the genus Urtica so I imagine the pain is similar.) If you ever get stung, take some tape and place over the hairs and then rip it off. It can pull the hairs off. Also, apply Benadryl cream or something like that. If you have signs of a severe allergic reaction, call 911 or get thee to the ER! And as always, if you're not sure what it is, don't touch it!
As some of you may remember, I pulled my Tropical Milkweed but I still have seedlings popping up. I was pulling some the other day when I found about six Monarch cats. I moved them over to the Giant Milkweed, but I hadn't seen them in a few days and was getting worried. But tonight, I left to make a Starbucks run and saw big piles of frass. And you know what that means - caterpillars! If you want to find caterpillars, think like their predators and look for frass. They're usually not far from it. By the way, I found three big Monarch cats tonight. The others may have been too high up for me to see.
And on a final note, Mom and I went to see "Jurassic World" which was lots of fun. I kept my eyes open for butterflies because you know the park is supposed to be located on an island off Costa Rica. I only saw one scene where they were traveling through a meadow and what looked like some White butterflies were flying around. But the dinosaurs were really cool and I was scared plenty of times. I didn't even eat any Skittles this time because I didn't want to be known as "the lady who died choking on a Skittle while watching "Jurassic World". And for those who are just joining us or missed the part where I talked about this, butterflies had not evolved by the time the dinosaurs went extinct, but there were moths. So no butterflies ever landed on a dinosaur, but moths were flying around in the night.
