Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Leafwing eggs!!!, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Yes Leslie, it's a leafwing caterpillar. I've edited my previous post - sorry I neglected to say that.

Not sure if I'll raise the cats. I have to do some traveling next month and don't want to leave caterpillars in cages - I'll be gone for a week. For now, I've left them on the native croton and will check on them each weekend. I also dug up some croton and transplanted it into pots and brought them to my house. If the plants survive I might collect some cats before I leave and put them on my plants.

I've tagged one of the plants...the one with eggs and a cat. I saw that leafwing laying eggs on several other nearby plants. The back fields are covered with native croton...so am sure they'll be plenty of cats for me to raise when I get back.

And you are so right...there are so many different species of butterflies out there that use the native plants...which unfortunately do not do well in gardens (probably because I over-water them - and they are used to drought conditions). Can't raise every caterpillar or egg I find due to my work schedule...but I do try to locate the last instar caterpillars (the ones ready to go into the chrysalis stage) and baby sit those :o)


~ Cat

This message was edited Aug 25, 2007 8:44 PM