Look what I found yesterday! So late for them isn't it?
Do you see what I see?
A close up....
A soon to be!
Edited to say: Stacey, he is climbing on YOUR St. Vincent's Vine.
This message was edited Dec 25, 2003 1:23 PM
Wow! That's so cool! I found some cats the other day and was amazed. I can't help but wonder how they made it through the freeze. Oddly the cats I found had 2 "antennae"
coming from the center of their backs as well as the normal ones front and back
oh my, you are having a good winter! i've seen a few sulfurs and zebra long wings, no monarchs.
Stacey, ya'll been having acid rain or something down there???? How many did you see like that, got any pics?
Arlene, yes, we are having an unusual winter and I have no idea what the weather will be like for the next 2 months and the weathermen certainly don't know.
How is it down your way?
Update....here is a picture from Sunday.
Is it starting to darken yet?? Of course I have pictures LOL I just have to find them again. They weren't so hot so I didn't download them and now I'm not sure which disc they're on
Stacey, the cats with two sets of antennae in the front are not Monarchs, they are Queens. Both cats eat milkweed, but the Queen is a smaller cat with the two sets of antennae and more prominent black banding that monarchs. Also the Queen B'fly doesn't have the same markings as the Monarch. Here is the adult Queen b'fly (a male):
Here is the cat:
And weeds, no it's not too late for monarchs right now. I have a number of little cats out in the yard. I was a little surprised as it had been pretty cold here right before Christmas, too. No freeze here (we were just shy of freezing, though). Somehow these guys survive. I saw 4-5 of them feeding on the milkweeds I planted around my A/C air handler during the cold snap. i noticed that they hang down from the leaves by their back pair of legs in the really cold temps. I'm not sure what that is all about. Perhaps a means for the cats to be in the sunshine as soon as possible to warm back up?
i grew these out in a jar one year, was awesome. i thought min were queens also, in the same family. i am not sure i have had any monarch monarchs here. Stacey i wish i was as good with a camera as you are.
Thanks Mandy! When I found one not so good picture it was obviously not a monarch cat. Those are the first Queen cats I've seen in my yard...I'm thrilled. I keep looking for them but haven't found them. Nothing is really eating the milkweed right now either. Lots of Zebra Longwings and Gulf Frits still around though.
Connie has your Monarch emerged yet??
Arlene maybe we can bring you some Monarch cats next summer. They will be so happy there...
As of yesterday no butterfly and i forgot to look today....home late and Betsy had my total attention. What a cutie she is.
It may take longer than the typical 10-14 days due to the cold. Don't fret if it hasn't hatched.
It hasn't and I had given up on it....Thanks BG
If it were summer and it hadn't hatched, I might tell you it was lost. But it's not summer. It could hatch as late as early to mid February. As I understand it, the monarch has one generation that overwinters as a pupae down here in the south. It's usually a 1-2 months during the coldest part of the year. The Monarchs that migrate from northern US take something like 4 generations to get to and from Mexico each year (like 2 going up and 2 going down or some such thing). What I mean is that a butterfly lays eggs and dies. The eggs hatch into caterpillars that pupate and become butterflies. That is one generation.
Patience! Keep watching it. As long as it doesn't turn completely black and stay that way (without the b'fly hatching), it's just hybernating :)
It is interesting to see that it is pupating on something other than milkweed. I had several "cats" this fall and they all disappeared when they got to be full-sized. Now I can hope that they survived and have pupated somewhere else.
Kelli,
Many cats will not even stay on the plant when they "rest" between instars (juvenile stages). Some critters hunt for the cats based upon leaf damage (either by seeing the leaf chewed up or by smelling chemicals released by a chewed leaf). In addition, the cats likely will not have much of a place left to pupate if they stay on the milkweed plant. If you have ever had an abundance of monarchs in your yard, you know that what was a beautiful lush Asclepias can become just a little stub in only a few days. The cats will eventually crawl off and find a more stable and sheltered place to pupate for a few weeks. I have found them 20-30 feet away from milkweed plants before, many times on the eaves of my roof.