Tarev, I'm going to make a wild guess and say you have the Western Tiger Swallowtail as opposed to the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Either way, I'm jealous. But I've got their host plant just waiting for eggs...
In the meantime, I'm swamped with other Swallowtails! I keep finding Pipevine Swallowtail eggs. Mom even found a caterpillar! And she is not very good at finding caterpillars (especially ones that small) but she insisted it was right there in front of her. She brought the whole leaf in and I moved him to the right plant. Here's a picture of two of the eggs about to hatch. You can totally see the little caterpillars in there turning dark. In case you didn't know, caterpillars eat their way out of the egg. What else are they going to do? They don't have hands or beaks! Then, they eat the egg as their first meal.
But it doesn't take long before they start eating.
I also found two Spicebush cats that I must have missed and I think I've found four more eggs since I last posted. They're still not laying on the Sassafras but I guess that's ok because at this rate I'm going to run out of spicebush and I'll have to feed them something. There's also lots of Red Bay growing behind MOSI so I can always snag that, too.
So when the parents were on their way to the Grand Canyon, the only other car on the road in Clovis, NM threw a rock at them and cracked the windshield. Mom called yesterday to get it replaced. The appointment was for this afternoon, but the guy called at 7:15 this morning to let us know he'd be here around 3:00 pm. I was annoyed at being woken up, but I guess it was a good thing because I had my alarm set for 10:00 am and TECO finally turned our power off at about 9:50 am (without the notification phone call this time). So I totally would have missed my therapist appointment. Anyway, I went out about 8:00 am to get the Pipevines some more food and to gather eggs because Mom said she saw it laying eggs last night. And I didn't take my camera because what butterfly is up that early? Well, I found one that was still asleep! This Gulf Frit was hanging out in the plumbago. I always assumed they went up in the trees. The passion vine grows next to the plumbago so maybe this one was just lazy?
In the meantime, the Pipevines got breakfast. By the way, don't try to move a tiny caterpillar unless absolutely necessary because they may be molting and they're too small to be able to tell. I learned this the hard way. FYI, I think I've lost a couple of the Pipvines but more seem to be thriving than not so we're heavily in the plus column. Also, setting the old food on the new food, as I did in the picture, is an easy way to get them to move to it.
This afternoon, the Zebra Longwings were flying around.
Speaking of Zebra Longwings...a few years ago, I planted some Passiflora lutea out on my corner. No matter what I do, this plant always comes back. It doesn't grow crazy fast and isn't invasive, but it is persistent. I spotted it a few weeks ago and I was telling Dad I want to dig it up and put it in the butterfly garden. I actually had some planted there but I think I really did kill that one. Well, the plant isn't very big but the Zebra Longwings found it. And with all the weeds out there, I have no idea how it found it. I found two caterpillars and relocated them to my P. "Lavender Lady" because there wasn't near enough P. lutea for them to grow to a full caterpillar. Zebra Longwings always lay eggs on the native passion vines (P. lutea, P. suberosa) but they seem to eat all the other kinds just fine (with the exception of the red-flowered ones which are bad for everybody).
Meanwhile, the Gulf Frits weren't being jerks today and posed for a few shots. This is actually two different butterflies. There was like three of them chasing each other around.
And while I was feeding the Spicebushies I took this picture. There are two cats - one all the way to the left, and one straight up from the egg. And that hole on the right? There's two more cats on the other side of the leaf. Which brings me to the point of making sure your caterpillars have fresh food at all times. I have seen caterpillars drink water (mostly when I was forcing them to when trying to nurse them back to health) but this is not a normal thing. They get water from eating the plants they ingest. So try not to let their food dry out or you get dehydrated, and eventually dead, caterpillars.
