Wow Melanie what an awesome day you had I love the Giant Swallowtail so cool you get to see that

J the Azure is so pretty, need to get me some Boneset

Pretty pic jmorth! The boneset here is just starting to bud... I love how many flying pollinators it attracts.

I got a boneset plug this year--hope it comes back next year and blooms!

Monarch #1 eclosed this morning!

I knew it was almost time so I was doing my best to keep a close eye on it, and I actually saw her emerging!!

15 chrysalises now and one caterpillar still munching away.

Boneset ranks right up there w/ NE Aster, Maximillian Sunflower, Bidens, and some goldenrod's as prime wildflowers that attract hordes of BF in the fall.

Really nice all Melanie with Giant ST .
Catmint with the new Monarch .

Coffee and butterflies in the morning , of course near noon now

Monarch here this morning

You would think I was obsessed , someone referred to that as Enthusiastic ?

and; Then there were more

Had to try an action , I forgot earlier , The Dots on the hind wings , real good photo of a Male and his hind wing dots , Female Monarch those are absent , Had to keep this educational , well some , anyway

I''ll try the Zinnia ,


Still at the Tithonia

Woo Hooo Melanie! Your day just didn't quit did it?! Yay for the ID! What a big name for such a small butterfly. It sure is pretty though -- the butterfly not the name.

Robin

I went to look up boneset to see if it would grow here. Decided I needed to get some if it will. Ha, ha, found out it's Joe Pye which I have a Baby Joe Pie coming this month from Bluestone.

Edited to spell pye correctly.

Thanks all!

Robin, I'm so glad your Monarch rearing is going well! And that you got to see one emerge! It seems like it took me forever to finally see that happen. Whenever I'm at the museum and I see a butterfly emerging, I run outside and pretty much attack anyone in the vicinity. Sometimes it's just other volunteers, but I've got to show a lot of guests, too. I remember one Monarch was making its chrysalis and I sat down with these two women and we all watched it together. They were saying how it was a "once in a lifetime experience" for them and thanked me. I try not to ever take it for granted even though I've seen caterpillars do all sorts of things hundreds of times. For guests at the museum, this may be a once in a lifetime thing for them. And I'm always glad to share it with others. Way more fun that way! I like to think they enjoy my narration, too!

That all sounds wonderful Melanie Getting to narrate and share that way is a great thing for everyone ,
Keeps the interest of the learning mind going to

Loved the moth earlier also . BAMONA , last week gave me my ID for the Red Admiral larvae caterpillar .

Thanks Melanie. This was the first time I saw a monarch emerge.

Congratulations Robin! That must have been pretty awesome.

Let's see, I had a few random things I meant to post and now I'm trying to remember what they were.

Well, first off I have to admit to doing something stupid. I have my tank of Pipevine ST cats and all are in their chrysalis but one. A few days ago I had two caterpillars. I thought the one had gut purged already so when I saw another gut purge, I thought they were done eating and stopped giving them food. The one made its sling but the other one just kept wandering for hours and hours. It kept going to a dried up leaf in the tank which got me thinking. Maybe it hadn't gut purged? I went out and got a leaf and sure enough, he started eating it. I think I got confused when I changed them from one tank to another. He's doing fine and still eating. Today he ate the stem before he ate the leaf, just like a good Pipevine cat would do. But I still feel pretty dumb. I should know better.

My Polydamas crop is almost all dead. I have one left. I wonder what was wrong with them. It makes me think of this spring when I had those eight Spicebush that all died. But that one kept eating for about a month and just never grew. They're doing that. I wonder if it's a genetic thing or a disease passed from butterfly to the egg? I hope the eggs I collected yesterday do better.

Another thing that happened last spring was that I saw a Southern Broken-Dash and a Northern Broken Dash Skipper on consecutive days which I found funny. I wondered if they ever interbred and made some "Middle of the Road Dash" jokes. Well, I got some BAMONA confirmations back and on my birthday, I saw both the Northern and Southern on the same day!

Here's the Northern Broken-Dash.



And here's the Southern Broken-Dash.



This is why I leave Skippers to the experts. I'm always like I know a few, but most of the time I'm just confused. Speaking of BAMONA, I knew I had seen that Red-Waisted Florella Moth before and swore I had a picture of it. But there wasn't anything in my BAMONA account. I was like, whatever, and Googled it to learn more. And one of the sites that turned up was DG's Bug Files with a picture I had taken of one back in like 2007. Someone must have identified it for me over there. At least I remembered I had taken a picture of one before! That's something!

I'll have some news to share about my mystery caterpillars, hopefully soon. I'm awaiting an answer right now.

Thankfully I have observed a few emerging. We used to have quite a few making their chrysalis in our yard down south & I would often put them in a jar & watch them emerge. Very cool! Which brings me to something Melanie. Long before I spoke to anyone like you who knew so much about butterflies.; when I watched I saw their bodies were really fat & they seemed to be "hydrating" their wings -- I just deduced from watching - no computer back then to look things up. Anyway, after they were done getting "all the wrinkles out", while sitting there drying their wings, a LOT of water would drip out of their bodies. I remember 1 time specifically when it was sitting on 1 of my flip flops & by the time it was done the footbed of my flip flop was had a pretty good sized puddle in it. Is that just left over water they didn't need?

Boy, that was a long winded question!

That is interesting Ann. I was unaware of any water

Well Ann , I can't really answer that question , and I am not being a smarty with this ,
I suppose it is similar to a new born ,When they go , they go ,
Or a bunch of Birth fluid coming off in the wing wash , oops maybe it is the caterpillar fluid they no longer need ,and it acts as wing wax , at emerge

That or if someone locked me in a Chrysalis , for two weeks , I would be angry enough to spit myself , now I am being a smarty

Jim.

Actually, Jim is pretty correct. That fluid is called meconium and is waste fluid the butterfly built up in the chrysalis. What it no longer needs, it squirts out. The last Io Moth I released got me good! Sometimes it's colored and sometimes it isn't. At MOSI, since we keep them in boxes, people often see the meconium and think it's blood because it is often a reddish-brown color. So I actually explain this a lot. Newborn humans also expel meconium. I accidentally found that out when I Googled to learn about the butterflies and some really gross diaper pictures showed up instead.

So something odd happened when I checked on my mystery cats today. There was something flying in there! It wasn't a butterfly, though. At first I panicked because all I could think about was parasites, but then I looked at the thing. Remember the picture of the tiny pupa I posted? Well, it emerged. I've asked the Bug ID thread and BAMONA but I did some research and I believe it to be some kind of Plume Moth. It's weird because I was telling Dad this morning how that one seemed so much smaller than some of the other caterpillars I have in there. But I know sometimes caterpillars "shrink" before they pupate so I thought maybe that was all it was. I still feel like the other caterpillars are likely Ceraunus Blues. But for now, I can confirm three species raised on Desmodium incanum: Long-Tailed Skipper, Dorantes, Skipper, and some kind of Plume Moth. I'll tell you if BAMONA or Janet give me a specific. Meanwhile, check out how tiny it is!