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The thread "January 2015 Butterflies, Moths & Larva" in
Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum
It's February! I don't put much stock in that groundhog, so hopefully you're all in the home stretch of the winter season and butterflies will be returning soon. I ended up spending a little longer at MOSI today than I meant to, but I get to talking butterflies, and I won't shut up!
Here's a picture of two Monarchs that I thought would be a nice thumbnail for the month. I was literally walking around the flight cage asking the butterflies who wanted to be the "cover butterfly" for February. These two posted the nicest, so here they are.
This morning it was cool but it warmed up nicely but some of the butterflies would not come down from the screen. So let's start with my bad pictures first! Here's our last Atala (until we order more).
Here's a Duskywing that I thought was going to pose for me, but no such luck. Still, I know it's "pictures or it didn't happen", so here's proof.
This Cloudless Sulphur didn't come down the entire four hours I was there.
I caught this Gulf Fritillary out in the garden after stalking it for about twenty minutes. After a certain point, it kind of becomes personal. Melanie won this round.
There's one Giant ST in the flight cage, but we do still have a few chrysalises left. This one wasn't very cooperative although it did land on a guest today! Here it is on the geraniums. (That's the very bright Florida sun in the background.)
Okay, I have some good pictures, too. We had four Great Southern Whites in the flight cage that were somewhat cooperative. While it was still cold, I made the one on my finger cooperate. And as always, let me point out the exceptionally cool turquoise-colored antenna clubs. Too cool.
We still have some Malachites but I think we're going to have to order more if we want to keep them going. They've pretty much stopped laying eggs.
I guess I should have put this picture with the Great Southern Whites, but here are the caterpillars in the lab. They were eggs last week. I didn't notice this in real life, but looking at the picture, you can see that the one caterpillar has just molted. His head capsule is in front of him and his molted skin is behind him. So weird that I didn't notice that with my own eyes!
Three Julias for the price of one!
I managed to find a Cassius Blue sunning itself and got a decent picture! Shock!
The official Florida state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing.
We actually have a passion vine growing in the flight cage. But lately the bosses have been taking cuttings and hanging them from the Jatropha using a binder clip. And it works! Here's a Julia who was trying to lay eggs but the wind kept blowing real hard and she gave up. But you can kind of see the eggs on there that were deposited by earlier butterflies.
Now, we have Heliotrope in the flight cage and I think it's one of those things that's going to die as soon as it warms up. But for those of you north of me (which is nearly everyone), I'm just going to leave some reasons why you might want to include it in your garden this year.
