But what swallowtail it is, I am not sure.
Quick & Easy Cat Cage
Awww ... good point! Are the eggs still there? I guess you will have to wait and see what the cats look like. It is either Black Swallowtail or the Giant Swallowtail butterfly.
Great pic Sheila... I think (guess), the orange one is a GST, the white one is BST.. Please let us know!
Suzy~ Do you have a magnifying glass? It helps to have one out in the garden. I always keep one out there.. Can't see whorth a flip myself!
:-D
This message was edited Jul 22, 2007 8:16 AM
I ususally spot the eggs on the parsley when I've cut the stem, brought it in to inspect just before I wash it so I can put it in the cage with the other cats. I can see the eggs so much better in my kitchen. I'm looking for them too, I guess that's why they are easy for me to see up against the all green leaves.
Right Cdawg, that is usually when I see them, even though I look outside before I clip it!
Becky...I will try to keep track of them. Most of mine have been BST lately, but that is because my Rue had died. I was lucky Friday and found some plants at Archie's Gardenland and bought six, got home and found about 10 live cats or eggs on them! I am hoping some of these are GST. The live cats I have moved off so far are BST.
Well folks! The Monarchs up in this thread, which closed into their chrysalids on the 18th of July have eclosed this morning!! Just the 3... The 4th one closed up on the 19th. It should come out tomorrow.
While they were hanging there I thought I would put them into the hamper cage so they would have room to flap around before I released them.
So that makes 8 days for morphing in summertime here in Texas.
Whoooohooooo!!
Congratulations, Deb! Doing the happy dance with you!
Deb - Whoo Hoo! Now the fun begins when you release them into your yard and see if they stick around or come back after mating! Mine often disappear for a couple of days and then suddenly show up. Usually the females return to lay their eggs! :-)
Wow, that's fantastic!!! Congratulations!
Wow! Congratulations!
That is a great photo -- they're just sort of hanging out. LOL!
Suzy
Thanks Ladies!! It is pretty exciting.. I have them in the big hamper now. All 3 are males... The 4th one will eclose tomorrow, I wonder... I could wait for it to see if it is a she.. humm.
I hope you are right Becky, I need somebody to eat this milkweed, LOL!
Deb - Remember me telling you that I had a bunch of males eclose before females? I, too, was worried about it then. But ya know what? Even if YOU didn't raise any females, I can assure you that there are females around. I don't think Monarchs mature for breeding immediately. I think it takes several days before they are ready to mate after emerging. If you've got the milkweed in your yard, they will find you! :-)
Thx Becky, I'm not worried..The same thing has happend with the Black STs, and I remember your Monarchs well. I just can't help but thinking #4 might be a female. It was in the same clutch as these, only lingered an extra day to make the chrysalis. It's been uncommonly cooler here, and I'm sure they won't starve.
A light gust of wind just whisped through the middle of the garden here, and in it was a huge dragonfly, my little hummer, and a Queeeeeeen! I think it was a male, he had a couple sips and left. Surely there are more not far behind him.
;-D
Wooo wooo....!!! Congrats there Deb!!! That is a sweet shot!! Was Ben home to get to share the joy??
Still haven't seen a Monarch here. I have MW and aphids, Mist flower starting to bloom. Maybe soon.
Thx Sheila!
Yes Ben was here, and DH too. Glad I didn't wait on the stragler, because he was a male too. LOL!
Hey yall!
I did find a Buckeye cat the other day... Now trying to find possible siblings, tho birds could have found them first by now. I had several potential places to look for them, so far no dice.
Will get back when I find exactly what it was eating on. From the ID it is in last instar.
:-D
Well the world has to have males too I guess! LOL!
I made a rescue at lunch Friday. I was looking at some milkweed plants at Bot.Gdn. and found a cat. Only one on about 12 milkweed plants that had been chomped on. Then I got to seeing these huge ants and wasp around. I figured they were the reason there wasn't more Monarch cats. So I plucked the leaf it was on and took it with me. So I have a new cat in my nursery now. I have plenty of Milkweed to feed it since I don't have any cats on mine. It is eating big time.
Wonderful Sheila!
Good job! I woulda done the same thing. I expect on return migration we will have more Monarchs than we know what to do with. We are right square in the path, you, Paige and I.
Made my lil Buckeye a frogfruit palace inside of the 2 qt gladware. I looked all over, so far no others. Frogfruit is a hard plant to find things in. When I found this one, I had just watered.. I wonder if that flushed it to the top where I could see it. I will have to give it a good look after I water.
Here's a closeup.. It loved the loop-d-loop thing. Went to town, just like a hamster. I wonder how many people squash these because of the spikey spines. If people only knew how uncommonly beautiful the Common Buckeyes are. I have to admit I'm getting attached. LOL!
Took me a while to figure out what "loop-d-loop" you were talking about. Then I realized you were talking about it traveling on the wrapped around vine! LOL!
I love the buckeye, I have only seen one this year.
Beautiful picture! Is that Yellow Cosmos? She really pops on that flower!
Looks like my buckeye got buckshot though! LOL! Pretty one you have there.
Oh, I just picked up my Garden Gate and noticed they have several bfs and cats; also mention the host plants! Good pictures too. I hadn't noticed that the buckeyes also use Snapdragons as a host! I need to check mine that I was going to whack this weekend. Glad I didn't do that today!
Are snapdragons perennial down there?
I have a bunch here this year, but they aren't perennial, so I don't know if they would stilluse them or not. Yikes! What if they lay eggs, the eggs overwinter but the plants die and I pull up the dead plants?
Suzy
They aren't perennial for me. But they do have a long blooming period. Right now they are not blooming well, too tall and falling over in heavy rain. I had thought I would clip them back and see if I could get another bloom. But now I am going to look them over carefully before I do!
The kind of Snapdragons are not the ones they sell in stores. The Buckeye uses the native snapdragon, (such as Agalinis). This little fella I have is eating Frog-Fruit* very happily. I have it trailing all over my yard.
*(Phyla nodiflora~ a native type of Verbena),
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/62730/
It's kinda strange too. I think I already had it here, and didn't know it because of how thick the weeds were in my backyard before I took it over for the butterflies. Josephine gave me a plant a few months ago when I went to see her. I don't think all of this came from the one plant. I tell you folks, I just wish for something, and it appears. I knew God loved me, but wow! It has been such an amazing year...*I am in awe*. I am learning so much about Buckeyes now too, where before so much was a mystery.
~Look at the leaves of the Phyla.. It looks like something has taken a bite out of every leaf, so it makes a great host plant if birds and humans look for things that have bites out of it to find caterpillars. Interresting, don't you think?~
Deb
What species of gas plant do Giant ST's use? I read they use Dictamnus fraxinella but can't find any nursery selling these seeds. Just wondering if any of the more common species would work?
Frog fruit, Deb?
I have a weed that looks exactly like Verbena bonairensis. Seems to grow around all my ditch lilies in my wild area of my pond. The butterflies seem to like it so I just leave it be. Maybe Its a re-seeded Vb that blow with the wind from the plants I started. I dunno.
I got some of the Frogfruit from Paige last year, but I don't know where it went. I don't remember planting it anywhere.
Darn on the Snapdragons! Guess I dont have a reason not to cut them back now.
LOL, Shiela!
But I am hot on the trail of Purple False Foxglove Agalinis purpurea.
I wonder if Asarina is a host for anything -- it's called the Climbing Snapdragon. Is there a reverse look up on the butterflies? You give them the host you have, and they name all the butterflies that use it as either nectar or cat host?
Suzy
Yep Deborah! Good 'ole grows like a weed Frog-Fruit, aka Capeweed, Creeping Lip Plant, Frog's Bit, Licorice Verbena, Turkey Tangle Fogfruit
~Phyla nodiflora~
Seems to have the properties a growing Buckeye cat can eat. I remember Paige had said it was a host plant for them. I looked it up and didn't find anything about this plant in the host lists of many sites. None of my books had that information either, but she was right! I wonder how long this has been growing here, how all of this could have come from that one tiny plant that died with the cold. (Like Sheila, I recieved a small plant from Paige last year too.) The seeds from the flowers evidently planted themselves! I
really like this plant. It grows great on dry ground, and hasn't choked anything else. It seems to veer around rootlines of deeper rooted plants. Nurseries probably couldn't carry it bc it would connect all the plants together, lol!
Oh and Deb, the Giant uses a lot of different host plants. Hercules Club is a great choice, but most any citrus and Rue works too. I have all of them, and they prefer the HC. I have some seeds from the Z. hersutim if you want some, just send me a SASE.
Suzy~ Please let me know if you find some seeds, I would like a few also. I had 2 kinds and they didn't take. The had to be sown on the surface. Another pack of foxglove seed, that were from WM (I think), has come up very well. No flowers yet, but they seem healthy.
:-Deb
Deb - The Frogfruit is a weed here and spreads all over my yard, but seems to stay low-growing. I don't mind it at all. I have never seen any cats on it though. But we also cut it low with the lawn mower.
I really like the F-Fruit.. It is a terrific ground cover for the host beds in back. It will even grow on the paths, and takes heavy foot traffic. Try skimming over it after watering. Something might peep out for air. Worth a shot.
:-D
Does anyone have a picture of the whole plant growing? I'd like to see what it looks like.
Some very good pics here Deborah:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/62730/
:-Deb