Beautiful, Ronnie!

Ronnie!!

Sweet - I just found a Luna moth cat on my contorted filbert (Harry Lauder's Walking Stick). Wondered what was eating the leaves and found that guy. HUGE. He makes a tomato horn worm seem small by comparison. Hoping I get to continue watching him.

Added to my four 5th Instar Monarch cats, I am a very happy naturalist.

This is totally anecdotal, but it seems like I'm seeing way more Monarch photos this fall than in years past. I'm taking that as a sign of a good migration!

I'm kind of exhausted from having too much butterfly fun. So I'm taking the day off. But I will share one totally cool thing with you guys. Remember I said one the gals at MOSI bought a new digital microscope that takes pictures? Well, apparently you can take videos, too! So she posted my Phaon Crescents on You Tube! It's less than 30 seconds but they're soooo cute! I have to buy one of those things! Make it full screen to totally blow your mind! https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Also, in another shameless plug for the MOSI Outside blog, check out their entry on Phaon Crescents. This one's from a few years ago but they've been updating them as they repost them. You might see pictures from someone you know! Also, I really enjoy mythology (since I was a kid) and it's super fun to read about the mythological figures the butterflies are named after. Do you know who this Phaon guy was? I didn't! http://lepcurious.blogspot.com...

Nice Monarchs Ronnie!

Wow, you guys have some great pictures--I had no idea that growing your own butterflies was actually something that people did at home...it seemed like something only the zoos and other sorts of places like that would do. I only have one measly little picture to share, but I really enjoyed the look of this camo-moth:

DogsNDaylilies I am not one here who grows my own , so to say , That has a different meaning or two expressed as I just did
Moths are a fun study , Difficult though , Hard to photograph , easy to catch , only not here to destroy them .
Nice Photo , reminds one of snow and ice on a 90 degree evening

Thanks, Jim! Hopefully it helped cool off your hot evening. It's sweltering here, too, but I'm loving it. I, for one, am not a fan of snow and ice, save for a few days a year. (A perfect year would be one where it was snowy from December 20th - January 5th, and then the rest of the year it was Spring, Summer, and Fall with 70+ temps every day. ) The moth was particularly startling because of his camoflauge...he was on my front door and I was just heading outside to take my dogs for a walk and turned around and saw him--barely--out of the corner of my eye. I wished I could have stayed to admire him and take better pictures, but once my dogs hear the 'W' word (walk), standing around to allow Mom to admire bugs is not something they are willing to do.

Ooh, I want to pet the fluffy moth! It wouldn't like that, though which is why I stick to petting caterpillars. Can't pet other things because I'm allergic to everything with fur.

I'll post some photos when I wake up (again). On my way out to pick food, I stumbled and my sandal and my foot went separate ways and I fell to my knees. No caterpillars were harmed; I was carrying the Skipper container but had the lid on good. Melanie, however, got dirty knees which then became itchy knees. Am I allergic to everything? Yes, except fleas and rye grass according to my skin test. My knees are fine now but my foot hurts from where it got tangled with my shoe. I need to buy a pair of slides or something to wear when I'm on caterpillar food runs. It probably didn't help that it was sprinkling on and off all morning and made things slippery. Thank goodness I live in Florida where it's flat as a pancake. You should see me try to walk around WV. I don't know how they do it! I've slid down more hills than I care to admit. I am what they call a "flatlander".

I did find a few more mystery cats and some more Phaon Crescent eggs and cats. They can really destroy a leaf faster than you'd think! And one of the mystery cats might be pupating. He's been on the side of the container all day and there appears to be a good amount of silk. Like, more silk than if he was just molting. I suppose we'll find out eventually!

Wow! Catching up on this thread, and the pictures are amazing! I love the cute little cats, the interesting chrysalises, and beautiful wings. I especially liked the Malachite and Giant ST pics, but they are all so fascinating. I have been seeing little hairstreaks on my sedum, but they are too quick for me to get a good photo. I keep seeing a pair of Tiger STs on my butterfly bush, 1 yellow and 1 dark form. I wonder if it's the same ones each day...

A little Grey Hairstreak

Great pictures all ,
Today's Monarch in the rain . several again today Still mostly male

We've got some nice variety on the thread! I'm loving it!

My last Pipevine ST finally gut purged so that's one tank I don't have to feed. But my Polydamas hatched last night so one just replaces the other, I guess. The little green dudes I was raising on Chamber Bitter turned out to be tiny moths, as expected. Three of them emerged today but all could fly so I couldn't get a picture.

One of my Dorantes Skippers looked like he was "toes up", but this is actually what they look like when they're about to pupate. Freaky, right? I poked him and he barely moved to let me know he was alive. I actually saw him finishing his chrysalis last night and he was wriggling around and made a perfectly normal chrysalis.



I found a few more mystery cats yesterday. The one I thought was pupating was still on the side of the container when I woke up. I couldn't tell if he'd pupated or not. I figured I'd have to get Mom's sewing lamp and a magnifying glass out. I went to watch "Days of Our Lives" with Mom and when I went back to my room afterward, he had pupated! I could see the skin at the bottom of his body! Hopefully, he's not another one of those Plume Moths and an actual butterfly. I guess we'll find out eventually. Anyway, here's some more of the mystery cats I found. Notice that they really like the flowers.



Here's a relatively large Phaon Crescent I found yesterday.



And here's the two clutches of Polydamas Swallowtails that hatched this morning.

New England Aster - today's BFs

Skippers 2 here -->

Sulphur


Silver Spotted Skipper

Pearl Crescent

Monarch

Cabbage White on Golden Dew Drop

Melanie With bunches of nice cats
jmorth With Bunches of Pretty Butterflies and Flowers

I have a bunch of chewed on plants , I have a bucket with Alfalfa stems , three of them with Bermuda grass around the bottom of them ,That is all that remains of Bunches and Bunches of Alfalfa plants

Are three on the arm with one in the grass
Grass Skipper
same Skipper
Monarch . wanting to get warm At first they won't sit still when I am near , now their landing on me ,


uh ,oh , rained out flight , grounded

That's a beauty on your arm, Jim!

Melanie still has a lot of babies around.

Jack, take another look at photo #2. Unless I'm seeing things there are 3 skippers there -- the 1 on the left that you can see it's eyes, head & partial wings -- but wait! what's that part of wings we see just below that one & to the right a titch? Mostly obscured by the leaf. It's another skipper unless I miss my guess.
That sulphur is awesome they way you caught it with the light coming through it's wings so you can see through to the dark edging on the topside of it's wings.

Jim, itsy bitsy Grass Skipper! A person could go cross eyed just trying to see that one! Monarch on your arm. OH MY!!

Sharp eyes Ann!

I downloaded that set above which came from the Canon camera (SX 130 IS) that will fit in my back pocket (barely). I then grabbed my other Canon (SX 500 IS) w/ big zoom (30X) that won't fit in any pocket to compare.
Sulphurs


different zooms from appx. 20 yd.


Monarchs


Pearl Crescent


SSS