Well, I have had a wonderful butterfly day! I hope everyone else is having a great day and a great start to their holiday weekend. But if you need some cheering up or just want to share in my joy, grab a drink, settle in, and let's talk butterflies!
The Tiger ST was just emerging when I came home so I threw down my breakfast sandwich and latte so I could take some photos. Butterflies (and moths) are all wrinkly when they come out of the chrysalis and have to pump fluid into their wings. They look pretty strange at first with their swollen bodies and shrunken wings.
As they pump their wings, they also furl and unfurl their proboscis. It's actually two separate tubes that interlock once the butterfly emerges. As you can see, it only takes a few minutes for the butterfly to start looking normal.
I put the Tiger back in the cage
and went to pick food and clean the containers. There was a Polydamas ST flying around outside but I couldn't get its photo. I did, however, get its eggs.
Good thing I was checking because I found a Skipper egg on the pipevine. I don't know why, but Long-Tailed Skippers will get confused and lay eggs on Wooly Pipevine. I put this one in a container with another egg I found later on a correct host plant, Desmodium.
Just when I thought I was done with Black Swallowtails, my Rue gets egged. I found eight all together; here's a few of them.
I went picking Desmodium for the Skippers and the mystery cats. And I found three more mystery cats! Here's a couple.
When cleaning out the Skipper container, I found three mystery cats in there that I had to move over to their container! Now, I had this one mystery cat that had been sitting on a leaf for days. I poked it and it would move. But it never moved off the leaf. Finally, the leaf started getting moldy and I thought, "I can't leave that in there." So I took a close look at the caterpillar and I realized it had pupated! I tore most of the leaf away except where it had attached. Look how small this thing is!
What's weird is I saw the size of it before it pupated and I have caterpillars that are bigger than that in there right now.So I'm still arguing Blue vs. Hairstreak in my mind. I know both can be highly variable and I have green cats and I have pink cats. Some have a stripe, some don't. I really want to end up with both kinds because that would be awesome. It's like waiting for Christmas!
Dorantes Skippers also vary and they tend to turn pinkish before they pupate.
Usually the Dorantes is green.
Outside, I think I have an adult Dorantes. I didn't see the turquoise on the body like the Long-Tailed has.
I finally get back inside and decide the Tiger should be ready for releasing. And was she ever! Went straight for the Cedar tree. But don't worry - we'll see her again!
The big butterflies all ignored me today so I decided to go over to the neighbor's side of the road to see if all those Phaeon Crescents are still there. And they are! I must have seen at least twenty which is crazy. Except not so crazy because there's a big patch of frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), their host plant. That's frogfruit in the picture.
It's also a popular nectar plant with the smaller butterflies and it hosts the White Peacock, too! So I'm having fun taking pictures of all the little Phaeon Crescents.
And in the middle of all this is a Dainty Sulphur, just chilling. Seriously, I put my camera like an inch away from it and it just posed.
But I'm looking at all the Crescents and if you know me, you know where my mind went. I thought, "There has got to be some butterfly sex going on!" And you know I was right.
Sometimes other males get attracted by the pheromones and try to interrupt. Zebra Longwings are terrible about doing that, too.
Don't ask me which one is male or female. No clue.
So my next thought is that with all these butterflies, there has to be eggs and caterpillars, right? I've never raised Phaeon Crescents before. I've never found anything on frogfruit before. I pondered going inside to reference my books, but I was like, "Nah. I got this". And I totally did.
I must have found over 100 eggs and caterpillars. No joke. I offered some to MOSI since I'll be going by on Monday so they can have Labor Day off. When I asked my boss if she wanted some she said, "Hell yes!" So she's pretty excited, too. They've raised them before and she said it was a lot of fun. I've never seen them at MOSI though, so maybe it's been a while. I always like to feature the smaller, overlooked butterflies. People are always about the Swallowtails and Monarchs. Can't a Skipper get some love?
So I went back in, hydrated, got a container, and filled it with Crescents. I was right by the main road in my neighborhood and only got one honk. I must be losing my touch.
I go back out there and this time I see a Barred Sulphur in the neighbor's yard.
I kept seeing this tiny orange moth that I've seen before but I can't remember what it is. It kept landing on the underside of plants so I couldn't get a great picture, but I sent it to BAMONA for ID. In the second photo, look at the size of the ant on the leaf above and to the right in comparison to this moth. It is TINY!
I walked back over to my yard because I thought I saw a Monarch flying in front of my house. I didn't see it when I got over there, but there was a large black snake sunning right in front of my house. It slithered into the porterweed. I told it where I had last seen Little Bunny Foo Foo. I also alerted Mom; she is terrified of snakes. Doesn't matter what kind.
Around the side of the house I see my Tiger ST on the plumbago but I scare her off accidentally. She lands in the grass near the shed and it takes me a minute to find her, but I do.
I alerted the parents that if they saw my neighbor mowing to tell him not to mow down by the road so as not to affect the Phaeon Crescents. Well, I was sitting on the couch talking to Mom when I heard a mower start up. I ran to the garage where Dad was and told him to go warn the neighbor. Turns out, it was the neighbor's teenage daughter mowing. Dad asked if she was going to mow down by the road and at first she was all, "Yes, I am!" Probably thought we were complaining about the weeds. But then Dad told her about the butterflies and asked if they could wait a couple of weeks to mow it. She said sure and I told Dad she was probably just glad to have less of a chore to do!
So that was my awesome butterfly day! I hope you enjoyed sharing it with me!
