I promise I'm still here folks. Just a lot going on. I got another new volunteer to train on Sunday so I had two people to do the heavy lifting for me! We also got free ice cream courtesy of Blue Bell Ice cream!
But before I left for MOSI I went outside to get a little food for my caterpillars. And I saw that two Gulf Frits had emerged - and this was about 8:00 am! In both cases, you can see the chrysalis above and a little to the left of the center of the butterfly.
I was rounding up the caterpillars because they have no leaves left on the vine. I took as many as I could find and dumped them in the passion vine at MOSI. If a caterpillar is in its final instar and is low on food it will make a chrysalis early and emerge as a smaller butterfly. I think some of them were doing that, including this one up on my house.
And I found one that was in his J. You can see his upper body isn't orange like the rest of him because he's starting to go through the change (that's not a euphemism for menopause).
And there are many empty chrysalises to match the Gulf Frits in my yard.
Got to MOSI and was dumping the Frit cats when I saw this White Peacock.
We had a dead Atala in the flight cage so I took the opportunity to look at the topside of its wings. A camera cannot capture the shimmer they have. It's a lot like the blue on a Pipevine if you've seen those.
Malachites hanging out on coontie.
Buckeye
Monarch
Atala
Monarch and Atala!
Great Southern White
Eastern Black Swallowtail
Double the Zebra Longwing fun!
Giant Swallowtail
Spicebush and Zebra Longwing on jatropha getting photobombed by another Zebra Longwing
Julia
Now, you know how I found that Pluto Sphinx Moth cat on Saturday. Well, I think I saw the adult in the shade house at MOSI the next day! What are the odds? The green color kind of makes them distinctive. Sorry I couldn't get a better picture.
Saw a male Pipevine ST on plumbago and got to show my trainees the shimmery blue. Couldn't get a good picture of it although one of them did.
Julia and Atala on a butterfly!
My boss left a note for me to check the coontie for Atala eggs. Found some!
Now, today I wasn't outside too much because I'm tired and then it rained. But I did get a picture of this Monarch egg bombing my Giant Milkweed.
Also, I had two Viceroys emerge! I only took pictures of the first because I was a little late on the second one. They looked the same, though. Notice how dark the Florida ones are compared to Dave's up in TN which was orange. Here's Dave's:
http://garden.org/thread/view_... Jack also posted some from Illinois that were orange. I read that in areas where Queens are plentiful the Viceroy will mimic both the Monarch and the Queen. Although, I wonder about that Queens being plentiful thing. Not in my yard. Anyway, here's a lot of Viceroy photos! FYI, I put it on the porterweed to absorb sunlight and finish drying out. Viceroys prefer rotting fruit and what Dave has, not nectar.
