Hello friends.
I believe I have both Anise and Black Swallowtales that visit my garden(although I'm awfully far East for Anise in Kansas). I'm wondering if you could ID the difference from the chrysalis?
Here are a few pics
Help ID this chrysalis please. AST or BST?
I have a couple more shots.
Sorry about the photoquality
Thanks for looking.
JD
sorry no one could help you JLD. It looks exactly like my Black Swallowtail chrysalis but apparently they look the same according to what I could find on the net and so do the cats. Guess you will have to wait to see what emerges http://www.blevinsphoto.com/aniseswallowtail4.htm
Looks just like BST chrysalis but I've never seen one made by an Anise ST. My book shows that you are not really in the area of Anise but that doesn't mean you couldn't have an occassional stray visitor.
Do you have any pictures of them? Anise appear to be smaller than Giant's and have stripes like Tigers, but not exactly.
Do you have the chrysalis inside so that you can see it when it ecloses?
LOLOLOL
I'm so sorry for the Xmas picture! It was late when I was posting these pics and I assumed the 3rd pic was in the right series of pictures. I JUST noticed it a few seconds ago.
You guys are the best with your knowledge and willingness to help me.
I brought the cat inside a few days ago and with in 36 hours, I found it hanging from the lid that you see in the 1st 2 pics. I took it off and set it upside down to photograph. I have it right here waiting to see what happens. I thought it was already enclosed or in the process as I haven't seen it move. Is there anything I should be doing to help it out at this point or do I just wait?
It's very odd, I went out to find the other cats that were on the remains of my 1 fennel plant only to find they had eaten it all down to twigs and had moved on somewhere. There were atleast another 10-12 cats on it all in the 5th instar IMO.
The AST and BST cats look almost identicle in the 5th instar, I couldn't tell them apart and was hoping to go out to look again. The other odd thing...My nextdoor nieghboor has the same fennel we gave here growing less than 50 yards away from my plant and there isn't a single cat on it and the plant is still huge/pristine. I wonder how in the world the butterflies missed it? My "Smokey Fennel" is in more of a butterfly garden than hers but the distance or lack of makes no sense to me. Meaning how there isn't a single cat on it.
I also thought I was too far East for an Anise to visit but I could swear I've seen both butterflies. I guess I will soon know.
Here is the 3rd picture I meant to post last night.
Would/could you guys give me a timeline of what to expect with this lil guy? How long beforeI might see a butterfly or should expect it to close?
Thanks again for your help and I'll keep you posted with more pics.
JD
LOL JD! I had no idea why you posted that Christmas picture either, but just chalked it up to you thought it was pretty. LOL! We can do strange things when we are on here too late!
Your butterfly will probably eclose in like 7-10 days, maybe more, maybe less. That's just the usual time. You don't need to do anything except just let it hang and wait. Do you have Tiger's there? If this turns out not to be an Anise, you might have seen Tiger's since they look similar.
Your bronze fennel will be found quicker by the butterflies since you have flowers planted around it. Does your neighbor have flowers also? If so, they might find it later. I usually get a huge brood of them late in the season. Which reminds me that I ought to get a couple of new plants soon.
If your cats were in the 5th instar they probably all went to make their chrysalises. There's always a chance of a bird or something else eating them since they are more noticable at that size, but more than likely they were just ready. The only way to know for sure is to put them in some sort of a cage.
I'm interested in seeing what this turns out to be! And of course to see this years Christmas pics. lol
konkreteblond
Thanks again for all of your wonderful info.
My nieghboor's fennel in in a flower garden, just not as surrounded by butterfly bushes etc. as mine. There are certainly enough flowers in here yard though IMO. Her fennel is more like only 50 foot away than 50 yards now that I look closer. That just blows me away that she doesn't have any cats. But, now that I think about it, she's continued using a systemic insect killer we both used earlier in the summer when the white flies showed up. That stuff was so nasty, it kept the hummingbird's and butterflies off our property for about 2 solid months! I had no idea those lil critter's were smart enough to avoid poisoned plants like that but they sure are(Thank Goodness!).
I've given up fighting the whiteflies for this season, they are so thick it would be impossible to properly treat every plant. I've always had whiteflies show up on 1 or 2 hybrids of hibiscus every August like clockwork. This season, the whiteflies were here before anything else! I've never seen anything like it and it's so sad to see my gardens in such horrible condition. I'm thinking last winter must of been too mild and that made the whiteflies life too easy for lack of a better explanation. I'm going to have to cull so many plants this fall as I can't afford to bring this infestation indoors for the winter. Have you had a similar problem this year?
I'm not certain about the different kinds of butterflies that frequent my yard. This is the 1st year I've bothered to pay this close attention to them. Now that I know a little more about them, I'm going to learn alot more and plant accordingly to attract even more next summer. It's addictive, just like when I started with the plants and birds! LOL
I'll keep you posted with follow up pictures, I have this guy sitting right here so I can pay close attn. to it's progress.
Thanks again, I appreciate it more than you'll ever know;)
JD
You are very welcome! I wouldn't know all that I do if it weren't for other people answering my questions too. Every question can eventually benefit someone else too.
I'm sorry that you are having such a bad problem with white flies. It's SO aggrevating. We barely had any cold weather here last "winter" either. I think that is the reason we had some plague of pill bugs earlier this year. Aphids on my milkweed can beat me down this time of year.
I have lacebugs. I was just talking about how my Frostweed plants are horrible looking. I have wanted them for a few years and finally found someone here at DG that had them and is more than generous but now I'm sad because they look pitiful. The lacebugs must just be attracted to them, like they were my yarrow and lantana in years before, and they are so hard to kill. I think I am going to have to just cut them down to get rid of the bugs. I sprayed them once with insecticidal soap but just couldn't get underneath well enough.
I have never used any types of chemical pesticides in my beds so I don't know if your hummers etc. can tell or not. Butterflies will lay on plants that have been treated but the cats will die. I have only used a Bayer product on my Brugs in a pot. I think I'm going to have to spray my Frostweed early and regularly next year.
Blondie;)
I'm with you on the not liking chemical pesticides. Your post reminded me that I forgot to order a "Garden Variety Pack" of beneficial insects that I've been buying every Spring for the last 6 or so years. Planetnatural.com offers this "Variety Pack" with Ladybugs, praying mantis egg cases, trichogramma...too many to recall but it included "Whitefly Parasites". This year the whiteflies showed up so early, they were already out of control before my annual order would of showed up. Check out this link: http://www.planetnatural.com/site/beneficial-insects.html
It's a list of the beneficial insects they carry with pictures and descriptions of them all. It's a cool site just to look at, we really enjoyed hatching the praying mantis and trying to rebuild a natural population of them. I can remember seeing them and many other critters that seem to be practically extinct. I haven't seen a single toad this Summer now that I think about it!Heck that is just 1 name on the long list or critters that are few and far between these days. I'm sure my use of chemicals didn't help this either darnit.
I'm gonna go look for some more AST cat's and other visitors.
Thanks again,
JD
That's a great site! I liked the pictures and descriptions. We've been in our house 5 years and have always used organic products. I started redoing and adding flower beds soon after and the worst I've used is insecticidal soap. I'm seeing the benefits of it with all the different types of insects and creatures I have here. I have lacewings, assassin bugs, ladybugs (but not all season), butterflies, moths, wasps, bees, flies, beetles, katydids, a few lizards and a LOT of toads! (I just love my toads!) ...I also have a lot of Robber flies! They are creepy because they just stare and I've had a couple that stalk me!
I don't have any Praying Mantis tho, unless I've just not seen them. I'm not sure I want them tho because they do eat butterflies, but so do the millions of spiders I have. I've got a HUGE garden spider on the side of my house. Tonight I was washing aphids off milkweed in a bowl of water and getting some milkweed bugs too. My husband had a good idea and started tossing some of them to the spider. Not only was that fun but cool to watch. We showed my son and his friend too. Seemed like a fine way to get rid of those bad bugs to me!
When you've released these beneficial insects, do they stay in your yard? I know most people have a hard time getting ladybugs to stay. I bought some last year and they stayed for just a few days but then left, when I had plenty of aphids for them.
This year the ladybugs were all over a native sunflower that came up so I will be continuing to let them grow next season too. Not but one or two tho because they get about 8 feet tall!
This message was edited Aug 29, 2006 7:49 AM
LOLOL We have so much in common! My wife is just freaky horrified of spider's but knows we need them so they are welcome. We've had this 1 spider on the back deck that has been building it's web in the same upper corner of the canopy everynight like clock work. It's been here for atleast a month now and has grown several fold. It's amazing how it tears down its web every single morning before I get out there and has it rebuilt just after sunset. I bet I look like such a fool chasing bugs all over the place to toss in the spider's web. I've found that when it's really full from a large meal, it's web is much smaller for the next few days. A Junebug will do that but moths must not be filling at all. I fed it atleast 5-6 lastnight, it was amazing to see how fast it can eat when it wants to. The first moth went from fresh catch to a tiny BB sized ball in 15 minutes. I tried to feed it a cricket but that thing just destroyed the web with it's harsh thrashing, I don't think the spider ever got to it.
Oh goodness, I'm way too easily amused and/or have way too much time on my hands;)
We used to have tons of toads and even a few leopard frogs that lived in anything that trapped water in the gardens. A salamander shows up every once in awhile but are mainly nocturnal like the tree frogs that are native here. We seem to have many more predators like snakes, foxes, a bobcat and an occasional coyote. I had 1 very large and healthy male coyote that sat just on the other side of my fence when my Blue Heeler went into heat last time. He was amazing, he stood less than 15-20 feet away from me. He hung around long enough for me to get out my digi and video camera then the nieghboors garage door opener went off and so did he. It's pretty sad how stupid male canines get when my females go into heat. My boy(my male heeler) totally forgets his name, to eat and everything else except for his girl. I only brought that up as we're at the end of a heat right now. I love breeding dogs but man it can be exhausting with stupid males keeping me up at night whining while shivering and drooling on himself.
It's very hard to tell how many of the introduced insects actually stay around after release. I think many do based on the lack of seeing hardly any this year and it's the 1st year I haven't released any. I'm tempted to buy a variety pack now except it's too late in the year for the praying mantis to mature enough for breeding and overwintering. I think I will anyhow as a last resort for the infestations.Mybe my friend that teaches biology at my daughter's Highschool will want to keep the mantis in his greenhouse over winter.
Well I've rambled on and on once again. I better get busy.
Take care, JD
Hello friends;)
Well the mystery is over and the end result was a beautiful BST we released Monday. I'm so bummed out that I missed all the action though. I had relatives in town for the weekend so my catapillar box was set off to the side, I was so busy I had forgotten about it. Monday morning there was brief quiet spell and I heard what turned out to be a butterfly beating its wings on the side of my box. It was too fast for me to get any pictures of the butterfly but I have managed to find a few more cats in various stages. I knew there was a big difference in the size and looks of them in the 5 instar stages but website pictures fail to show it well.
So I broke out my macro and close up lenses, stacked them together so I could get some serious close up shots. I had no idea the 1st instar was such a tiny lil thing.
Check out these pics and tell me what you think.
Look how their size compares to the fennel
Here is a good top view of 1 in the 5th instar.
Almost a underside shot
And just 1 more. I found these on the fennel next door. I wonder why I'm only seeing them in just 2 different instars? Maybe today I'll see some in other stages.
Thanks, JD
big congrats JDL!!!!!