And they aren't just any caterpillars. They's gonna be purty butterflies!
Butterfly Robin says they are rare swallowtails but there is more than one species chewing up my pipe vine.
Houston, we have CATERPILLARS
another
a "flutter-by"...
They are getting huge!
Wow! I loved looking at all your pics! Now I've got to go outside and see if I have any on any of my plants. Hope so.
That's wonderful ! Give them my address so they can
come and visit !
My yard is covered w/ Clouded and Cloudless Sulpher cats and butterflies- my one passion vine is covered w/ Gulf Coast Fr... cats.
Cat updates;.... I have two different kinds. This one kinda creeps me out. Any idea what butterfly it is? It is huge. About 2 inches now
that pic above is 1/2 of that cat. here's the other species
Have you posted these on the Gardening for Butterflies and Hummers forum? Or Bug Identification? The Pipevine Swallowtail had two forms of caterpillar, but yours don't look like the pics in my caterpillar book. Cool looking cats, really! I hope someone knows what they are!
I know the yard is covered here with 5 different butterflies and the hummer's are thick as thieves...they are dive bombing us when we go out back; have been that way for 3 weeks. Very unusually early--hummers not usually thick as thieves until late Sept thru Oct. here.
DJ
no linda.. I probably should!!!!!
Looks like a polydamas caterpillar. Loaned out my caterpillars books but I'm betting on polydamas. Pipevines are the larval host for both...but the pipevine cats don't have those stripey marks - the polydamas do.
~ Cat
ps...found this link on the web...it shows some photos of the polydamas cats.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/222/bgpage
This message was edited Sep 8, 2006 10:51 PM
OH! What an AWESOME striped cat!! The Polydamas are so rarely seen or discussed in our forums and I have never seen a pic of the cats. Yay for you!
I had a Black Swallowtail this week that was SO black and it just looked "different" to me so I was hoping it was a Polydamas It was not sitting down anywhere, just zooming all over the yard so it took me forever to get a pic and ID it.
You really need to post some of these pics on the Butterfly forum. :)
Here is a picture of some pipevine swallowtail cats munching on some pipevine aristolochia fimbriata vines.
yes they are polydamas. But they all disappeared, however, I saw two butterflies just now sooooo... also saw a hummingbird!
Can't wait for fall!