Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 41, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
EF...that skipper looks like a Long-tailed Skipper (Urbanus proteus). Lucky you! I haven't seen any around my yard this year yet. Alas, will have to wait until the fall season for the butterflies to show up.

As for the Gulf Fritillary chrysalids - you can tape or hot glue (don't touch the chrysalis with the hot glue though!!!!) the stem to a chop stick or wooden skewer or any twig since as the passion vine stem dies it will probably flop over. From there you can stick the twig into floral foam or a piece of styrofoam. Elsewise you can just lay the chrysalids on a piece of paper towel. They will still do fine laying on their sides.

Speaking of GFs - saw gobs of caterpillars on the native p. foetida at the ranch. All sizes of instars :o) They are plentiful so I left them on the vines - besides that I have to do some traveling out of town this week. No time to babysit everything I find :o)

Oh...and forgot - there were gobs of Pipevine cats around too. Saw a cluster of three on a stalk of grass - no food plant in sight! They looked comatose so I gathered them up and put them on some aristolochia fimbriata I planted out by the fence. Dumb butterflies still haven't found that vine to lay eggs on it - they insist on flitting around the back pastures in search of the native a. erecta. The caterpillars seemed happy to be rescued and quickly woke up and started munching out.

~ Cat