Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 67, 1 by mellielong

mellielong wrote:
Ok, I teased you with talk of my cherry tree caterpillars. To catch everyone up, last year Dad ripped out our palm trees (one died and the others were too hard to maintain). Naturally, I replaced them with native Florida trees - red cedar on one side of the house and a black cherry (Prunus serotina) on the other. I was hoping to attract Red-Spotted Purples even though I'd never seen one in my area. I also knew that Tiger STs will use cherry, although according to one of my books, "south of Ocala they exclusively use Sweetbay Magnolia".

I'm about two hours south of Ocala so I've been sure to check every magnolia tree I see when I'm out hiking. I've never found a Tiger ST. So far my cherry tree has netted me the Red-Spotted Purple cats I was hoping for and also some fun moths - Nason's slug moth and some Gray Furculas.

So a couple of days ago I'm out there hoping for more RSP and instead I find eggs. Eggs that look a lot like Swallowtail eggs. I waited for them to hatch - and these guys that look a lot like Black ST cats or maybe a darker version of a Giant ST cat come out. I know Tiger STs don't turn green until later, but can someone tell me if that's what I have? Is there another ST that will use cherry?