Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 16, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Fabulous photos everyone!!! Gotta love that huge tersa chrysalis. They remind me so much of my Pluto Sphinx ones. Am hoping the cats will make an appearance by late September. I have two huge hedges of firebush (their larval host) so it's quite impossible to find eggs or cats with so many places to hide.

Linda, congrats on finding that TST cat :o) Love that little metalmark. I have troble telling the Rawson's from the Fatal and we get Fatals here by the hundreds. They use Goat's Beard aka Old Man's Beard (clematis drummondi) as a larval host...and that stuff grows rampant on every barbed wire fence. I see gobs of Fatal Metalmark butterflies on it all the time but have never spotted a cat or chrysalis...then again...considering they would probably be the size of a grain of rice - an impossible feat to find!!!

Here's some mating Fatal Metalmarks I photographed yesterday at the ranch.
This is the topside - they camouflage easily with dried leaves of their larval host. Found these mating on a blade of grass.

~ Cat

ps...I had to change the exposure so the markings on the topside could be visible. The markings look like borders of silver threads were sewn into the wings.

This message was edited Sep 2, 2007 10:58 AM