What to look for .......

Hi everyone!

Since there are so many NEW to butterfly gardening and raising, I thought I would start a thread for identifying cats and butterflies. And also what to look for if you are wanting to raise them and need to know what to look for.

This first photos shows one of my Milkweed plants showing small holes in the leaves. If you turn them over, often you will find a teeny tiny caterpillar near the chewed hole.

I usually remove the entire leaf and put it in a small container such as a butter container. Be sure to put closely knit netting or scarf material over the container and secure with a rubber band.

This message was edited Jul 5, 2007 12:51 PM

Next photo shows a Monarch cat on a leaf. It's a pretty small cat and was on the underside of the leaf.

This last photo shows a bunch of leafs that I pulled from my garden with cats on most all of them. You can see the sizes of the cats. Some are so tiny you almost don't see them.

This is what you are looking for when you want to raise Monarch cats in captivity.

If anyone has other types of cats to show, please do. And any chrysalis would be great as well! This thread is for newbies to Butterfly raising and releasing.

How about if I cheat and just link to my photos :o)

Ya'll can see photos of caterpillars and chysalids of: Ceraunus Blue, Gulf Fritillary, Variegated Fritillary, Black Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, Pipevine Swallowtail, Tropical Leafwing, the rare Marius Haistreak, Monarchs, Queen, Tawny Emperor, Red-Bordered Pixie, a couple of moth cocoons - Pluto Sphinx and a Rustic Sphinx and a cute little pink caterpillar that I have not been able to identify.

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/553535929JvPOrM

~ Cat

ps...and if you get adventurous I also have photos of some butterfly eggs/ovipositing females and butterflies/moths from my yard as well as some from butterfly parks in south Texas

Cat - Awesome photos! Thank you! I just figured out looking at your labeled photos what some of the cats are that I am seeing in my yard. Some almost look like small slugs! Very cool!

Mucho thanks!

Does anyone know where I can get some Zebra Longwing caterpillars?
Have planted all appropriate food plants and would like to start a colony
here in Gulfport(St. Pete area)
Monschi

Monschi, I really would not know ..... but if I could make a suggestion.......it has been my experience that when I needed to find out a specific piece of info that if I start a new thread with that as the heading I usually get my answer very soon . Just a thought and an observation from my own experience.

have a great day.

james t

Cat, that is one awesome photo collection .... thanks for the link.

james t

Great photo collection cat. And Great thread Becky. You don't know how helpful this is as I am just now getting my first Monarch cats. And so far your pics match my experience exactly. All of my cats are really tiny but can already see the stripes on them. Also collected three eggs. I have never collected eggs before but figured that is what they had to be. Anyways, this is going to be a big help and thank you so much for starting this thread.

Leslie

Yes, thanks much!! That is a big help, and Texas your collection of pictures is amazing.