Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Zebra Longwings are finally back, 0 by artcons

artcons wrote:
Zebra Longwings have been missing from my yard since Hurricane Wilma back in October. This past Wednesday 4/5/06 I saw my first Zebra Longwing in the yard. On Thursday I saw cats on one of my "hidden" Corkybark Passionflowers. Then on Friday, I took the picture below of ZL & GF cats on this Corkybark Passionflower.
It's a composite picture 'cause the biggest ZL was on top of the stick looking for a place to go into chrysalis (and it's too good a pictue of a Zebra Longwing caterpillar to not show it.)
If you look close there are two ZL's on leaves, one on the bottom left and another middle right and a GF on the left middle. The inset is the ZL on top of the stick.

A mystery is how they find this plant. It's growing inside a walled area behind a Chinese Fan Palm in the shade of a Chaya on the left and Fennel on the right. It's totally in shade with no part of the plant visible unless you look underneath the surrounding plants. Also, this plant has a built in ability to change the look of it's leaves as a defense to the butterflies looking to lay eggs. Look closely at the leaves and notice how different each group of leaves is.

Art