I am not having any luck this year with my butterflies. Normally I can't keep up with them. I have tons of wilkweed, cassia, passionvine etc. and no cats. My friends is so full she had to buy more milkweed and I had to give her my fennel because she had so many swallowtails. First, wasps killing them all and now big fat toads everywhere. I have buterrflies laying eggs every day but no cats. Aren't the Monarch's poisonous though? Or can toads eat them with no problem? If so they are going to get relocated really fast. I miss my butterflies!
Do Florida toads eat Monarch caterpillars?
Harley, I think a toad would eat cats if they found them but usually the cats are too high for them to get to.
The cats have so many different predators, besides wasps and toads. The Cardinals love the BSTs, I have seen them pick them off my parsley. And there's predator bugs that patrol milkweed and other host plants. I've found a huge Praying Mantis on my milkweed once, she blended in so well. They know where the pickin's are easy.
You can buy these sleeves that you put around the host plant. Maybe try one and see if it works, then you'll at least know they can survive in your yard.
The Monarch's do taste bad to the birds but I don't think the predator bugs care.
Hang in there!
Awww thanks. I do have a lot of those red and black bugs on the milkweed. Could they be eating the babies?
The milkweed bugs? They only suck the seed pods, just cut the pods off and they'll leave.
I don't think the adult butteflies like to land if they are full of those bugs, it seems like they avoid them, so I cut the pods off.
Do you happen to know if they are the Cuban Frogs or are they toads? Cuban frogs eat just about anything. Most of the toads around here are only active at night, and I don't ever see them near my plants.
The butterflies are laying eggs, there just aren't any babies. I'll have some and then they are gone.
I believe these are them:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Bufo_marinus.html
Do you see little black flat spots anywhere on your milkweed? Look on the leaves, along the stem, especially around the top, and even under the leaves. I don't have scientific proof but I am certain that these used to be cats! When I start finding eggs and cats I start seeing them on plants and figure that some spider or assassin bug found the little cats.
Fly, I've been cutting off pods this year too but because I can't have all of them bust and germinate! aarrghh! I'm just thumping the mw bugs into my bucket-o-death (water w/orange oil) or I'm throwing them to my giant garden spider! lol That is actually fun! She has to go soon tho because she's built her web where one was last year and it's right where the butterflies come around a corner. Pretty smart.
If I set my cat cage outside for some reason at night I'll go out and toads will be sitting around it! It's too funny. Last month I had some Bordered Patch cats on sunflowers but decided they wilted too bad so I was going to put them back on a big one outside. I sat the bucket I had them in under the giant sunflower and left them to crawl back on it. When I went out the next morning a big 'ole toad was in it! I started yelling "NO, bad toad! bad toad!" and chased him out. He thought it was room service!
Harley,
Two bad predators for all butterflies are ants and wasps.
The ants constantly prowl through the plants looking for eggs. The wasps do the same for larvae. We can look for eggs the next day after seeing mama lay them and they will be gone. Same with 1st and 2nd instars. The Spicebush Swallowtail larvae roll a leaf into a tube, as a place to hide. The birds know this and bite right through the leaf for a tasty snack. God started it all, so we can only "participate" as best we can. Have fun, but don't get emotional or you will have a constant heartache over butterfly casualties. I think their natural survival rate is less than 1 out of 100.
Rod
I'm glad I'm not the only one who yells at the toads. I think they use my potted plants like condominiums.
Melanie
I'm having a problem with little lizards. Camillians (sp) I think. They are all over my beds.
There are so many anoles around here right now - most of them babies. Everytime I walk by a flower bed I see dozens of them go scurrying. They don't harm the plants so I always just leave them. I have seen them eat what was either a tiny butterfly or moth. Oh, and one went after a hairstreak I was trying to photograph but it flew away. I keep telling them to eat the mosquitoes, but they don't listen.
Melanie, my toads do the same thing with my pots! It's funny how they seem to choose the smallest one. Any time I pot plants for a swap they think they are in heaven and will squeeze their fat body into a little 4" pot.
I have anoles this year too but haven't even thought about them eating my cats! I bet they do, but I like the lizards too.
I had a perfect picture today of a "black spot" but my camera freaked out and I had to reformat and lost the pic. It was definitely a cat that had been sucked dry. It must have been fairly fresh because it still had some shape and I could see it's head. Not pretty, but it happens.