Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: New US record - rekoa (hairstreak) butterfly caterpillars, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
I found five of these strange looking caterpillars on my duranta purple sky flower bush (aka d. repens, d. erecta, saphire showers, golden dewdrops) in Edinburg (south Texas).

There are no photographs in existence of this caterpillar (until now). This has been determined to be a rare rekoa. NABA has placed them on their local website as a new US record.

A local NABA rep, his wife and their son, are the foster parents to my five. They have been involved with NABA for several years and are much more experienced in raising cats. He also has a much better macro lens on his camera.

He also found a pupa in Mission, TX and a beautiful rekoa eclosed on Friday and was released back into the wild on Saturday.

We are waiting to see what my five will turn out to look like. If all goes well, we should have five healthy and beautiful butterflies. Hopefully they will also find mates and be able to procreate! Everyone involved will have the opportunity to take plenty of photographs before they are set free back into the wild near the duranta bush from whence they came.

This is wonderful news for Texas as our local NABA is having their butterfly festival in October!!! I will be able to meet many of the butterfly scientists and entomologists I only know through emails and phone calls.

A million thanks to Texas Entomologist/author Mike Quinn and leading butterfly/caterpillar scientist/author Jim P. Brock!!!

~ Cat