Let's see, I had a few random things I meant to post and now I'm trying to remember what they were.
Well, first off I have to admit to doing something stupid. I have my tank of Pipevine ST cats and all are in their chrysalis but one. A few days ago I had two caterpillars. I thought the one had gut purged already so when I saw another gut purge, I thought they were done eating and stopped giving them food. The one made its sling but the other one just kept wandering for hours and hours. It kept going to a dried up leaf in the tank which got me thinking. Maybe it hadn't gut purged? I went out and got a leaf and sure enough, he started eating it. I think I got confused when I changed them from one tank to another.
He's doing fine and still eating. Today he ate the stem before he ate the leaf, just like a good Pipevine cat would do. But I still feel pretty dumb. I should know better.
My Polydamas crop is almost all dead. I have one left. I wonder what was wrong with them. It makes me think of this spring when I had those eight Spicebush that all died. But that one kept eating for about a month and just never grew. They're doing that. I wonder if it's a genetic thing or a disease passed from butterfly to the egg? I hope the eggs I collected yesterday do better.
Another thing that happened last spring was that I saw a Southern Broken-Dash and a Northern Broken Dash Skipper on consecutive days which I found funny. I wondered if they ever interbred and made some "Middle of the Road Dash" jokes. Well, I got some BAMONA confirmations back and on my birthday, I saw both the Northern and Southern on the same day!
Here's the Northern Broken-Dash.
And here's the Southern Broken-Dash.
This is why I leave Skippers to the experts. I'm always like
I know a few, but most of the time I'm just confused. Speaking of BAMONA, I knew I had seen that Red-Waisted Florella Moth before and swore I had a picture of it. But there wasn't anything in my BAMONA account. I was like, whatever, and Googled it to learn more. And one of the sites that turned up was DG's Bug Files with a picture I had taken of one back in like 2007. Someone must have identified it for me over there. At least I remembered I had taken a picture of one before! That's something!
I'll have some news to share about my mystery caterpillars, hopefully soon. I'm awaiting an answer right now.
