Now, on Sunday I went to the Hibiscus show, but before I did, I took a picture of a couple of my Spicebush cats. They've started gut purging. Some Swallowtails change color before they pupate, and as you can see, the Spicebush goes from green to orange. Or "gold" depending on where you live. They're much more orange down here in Florida which is why some lepidopterists suspect we have a subspecies.
That brings us to Sunday. There was a female Spicebush ST and a Polydamas ST battling for dominance of the Jatropha. Spicebush won!
Here's the Polydamas.
Remeber, the female Spicebush has more blue on it. Compare it to the male in my last post.
Check out all the pollen on her legs!
I was checking my Sweetbay Magnolia because I had seen a Tiger ST flying around. No luck, but this poop made me look twice. This is why caterpillars are bird poop mimics. Because it works!
My Gulf Frit transport business is staying busy.
Which brings us to yesterday. You guys know I'm raising Tersa Sphinx Moths. I've gotten a lot better at finding them when they're small which has been interesting because I can watch more of their process. You see, Tersa Moth cats come in green and brown forms, but I never knew if they started that way, or molted and changed. So I wake up this morning, and I notice one of my cats had molted and was much darker green than the other cats. A lot of cats are darker when they first molt and they lighten up after a few hours so I wasn't too surprised. But I took pics because I wanted to show you guys. You can also see his shed skin behind him. See the horn?
But then when I went to feed them this afternoon, he was brown!
And as I was picking food, I found another tiny guy. I put him next to my biggest Tersa cat just to show you how much they grow. Crazy, right?
By now, my Spicebush cats have started pupating.They usually go for the plastic, but this one picked a leaf. I saw the smaller cat on the leaf earlier when I was checking on them, but they don't tend to mess with each other, so I wasn't worried. What he did do was eat the leaf all around where the other cat had silked himself.
I took most of my Pipevine cats to MOSI but kept a few for myself. I think they look like lobsters with those big tubercles in front.
Outside, the other chrysalis on the Corkystem Passion Vine is darkening and showing the wing pattern. I imagine it will emerge later today.
And finally, I had five eggs and now I have five Black Swallowtail cats. You can only see four in the pic because one is on the underside. Let the eating commence!
