Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: The Tale of 2 Chrysalises, 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
One chrysalis is that of a Gulf Fritillary and the other chrysalis is of a Black Swallowtail. They traveled from Ft. Worth, Texas to Sebastian, Florida. The caterpillars were hand-raised by Deb until they went into their chyrsalis form.

Deb will have to fill us in on the details of how long she raised them as cats and how long they had been in their chrysalis stage when she mailed them out to me. From Texas to Florida, we will see how long it takes for them to eclose into their butterfly stage.

The reason they were sent to me was because the climate where Deb lives had gotten very cold and many of the nectar and host plants had died back since it is winter in her climate zone and city/state. So if the chrysalises eclosed within their normal 2 weeks, there might not be food to sustain them or host plants to allow them to reproduce in Ft. Worth, TX after being released into the wild. So these cats were sent off to me by their concerned human mommy because I live in a warmer zone and have not had cold enough temps to kill back my nectar and host plants for these species of Butterflies. And I also raise and release these same species of butterflies here in Sebastian, FL.

Here is how they look when they arrived in Sebastian, Florida.