Beautiful colors on the hairstreak Char! Fabulous detail in the photos as usual.
It's great to see you back.

So pretty, love the colors.

So pretty, love the colors.

It's overcast today in south La. and the temps are not bad at all. I had another Giant Swallowtail to visit and allowed me to take some different shots.

Anole

Wow Wow Wow!!! Those are beautiful butterfly "portraits"!

Most superb photos John!


I just cleaned out the container my cats were in & put everyone in one of the see through storage containers I already had. It's 13" long x 8" wide x 6" high. That should take care of them even the chyrsalis & eclosing. I have 3 more of those. Head count was 23 because one of yesterday's newborns had expired BUT I found yet another cat on the milkweed so the total count remains @ 24. I didn't count them as far as instar stage. I'll do that tomorrow. I did get photos but I was up @ 5:45, at the grocery store by 7:45, had to put away all of that, do the whole lunch thing, make sausage spice & rub it on the ground pork so that's all "marinating" until after dinner. I haven't stopped since my feet hit the floor this morning. I'm going to take a wee nap. Will post the photos this evening hopefully. Have to patty up the sausage & cook it after dinner though. We''l see how much energy I have by then. From looking at Ginny's photo referencing the instars, I think I have maybe half of them instar 3. They have the curvy antennae right? All the others have straight, shorter antennae.

Ooh, Juniper Hairstreak. So jealous.

Ann, they're not antenna, they're tubercles. Okay, so here's what happens to a caterpillar when it molts. When the skin gets too tight, they puff in air through their spiracles (the holes in the sides they breathe through). This way, they puff themselves to their stretching point. The new skin is forming underneath, meanwhile. They sit for about 24 hours (I find Monarchs to be a little faster). Remember, they're sitting on a silk pad that they've "hooked" the old skin into so don't move them! Now, once the new skin is ready, the caterpillar bursts apart at the seams, crawls out of the old skin which is attached to the silk, and shakes off the old head capsule. They also puff out the air at this point to give themselves a little room in their new skin. Then, they usually turn around and eat the old skin. They grow in between these molts. The only way they have to get bigger is to molt but there is growing room within the molt.

I guess it's like they start out wearing sweatpants and eat until it feels like they're wearing skinny jeans. When they molt, it's back to sweatpants and then they eat until they feel like they're wearing skinny jeans again. And this happens several times as they grow. I'm still a little under the weather, but I hope that made sense.

@anole - super shots...

Thank you Melanie. Perfect explanation. I understand very well by your description. Pretty cool stuff huh?

I'm sorry you're not feeling tip top. I hope you can shake that off soon.

Melanie, you should write a book. Love the sweatpants/skinny jeans metaphor; for the first time, I kinda understand the process. You could call your book "Butterflies for Dummies" - for people like me who have trouble grasping the concept.

But Char, then we'd have to buy Melanie's book to get all her wonderful pearls of wisdom, instead of getting them for free here!

You guys are funny. Pictures after I finish my giant bowl of ice cream. Which Dad had to scoop for me because it's hard to scoop ice cream.

one in the Flowers and one in the Grass
Buckeye

I said I was just going to go out and quickly grab some Pipevine for the caterpillars, but we all know that wasn't going to happen.

Three words: Magic Red Pentas



So one of my visitors was a Giant Swallowtail. More willing to pose today.



The other was an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.



And if that wasn't enough, there was a dark form female Tiger flying around, too! She left pretty quick so I only got one decent shot.



All these Tiger Swallowtails and I still can't find an egg! I did find these mystery eggs on my Sweetbay, though. No idea what they are so I brought them in and put them in a container. There is a Sweetbay Silk Moth in my area, but these eggs don't appear to be large enough for a silk moth.



Obligatory Gulf Fritillary



I'm not sure which Skipper this is and it doesn't look like the usual suspects, so I sent it to BAMONA. Doesn't really match the ones in my book, either. I'm used to all orange ones, but that yellow patch is really throwing me. Doesn't look like it's faded orange; I think it came out that way.

dyzzypyxxy said:But Char, then we'd have to buy Melanie's book to get all her wonderful pearls of wisdom, instead of getting them for free here!

Well, you have a point. However, I think it would be a runaway best seller - especially if she illustrated it with some of her great photos!
Melanie, don't you love the way we talk about you as if you weren't in the room???

Talk away. Your omniscient moderator is also a benevolent moderator.

We take comfort in the fact that you're always looking after us!

Great swallowtail spread Melanie!

And Jim's buckeye photos are quite nice too.

Ann
Enjoying all I am