DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 17

What guy? .... Where? LOL!! Definately does!

Great picture IN lily! My Shrimp's aren't blooming yet, what's up with that? Too much shade more than likely.

Debnes,
I am looking forward to your Tersa Sphinx viewing! I don't understand how you get your BST to stay on your finger long enought to place them on a bloom. I guess the diff is that mine have been caged all day waiting to get out when I get home!

My last Queen did eclose, but after I left for my meeting. Looks like another female, I went out and took some pics then she flew. DH came out a minute later and said "Do you know you have a butterfly on your butt"? LOL! He took a few pics of that of course. Edited to show...

How funny Sheila!
That is priceless!!!
Lily what a pretty little duskywing you have there. I just love those. Yours is a male Juvenal DW.. I finally bought a good butterfly book. I had been checking IDs online with all the great sites we have, but having this book is very reliable and handy. It is Kaufman Focus Guide "Butterflies of North America".
Your shrimp plant is a hit.. nice going!

Sheila and all, I am going to make a folder for Tersa and post it on a separate thread, bc there are so many pics. I will post one here now..

Tersa Sphinx Moth

Thanks Sheila & Deb! And thanks for identifying the male juvenal duskywing. They are pretty cool.
Love the Tersa Sphinx Moth!

This message was edited Sep 8, 2007 2:15 PM

I must have been really tired last night when I thought I had about a dozen eggs from that moth. All the eggs were laid singly except this cluster...which has to be about a dozen eggs just by itself. So I think I have about 20 Imperial Moth eggs. The Monarchs and Queens are still here laying eggs. I think on the Monarch migration map they put a big mark over my place this year.

Sweet!!! Linda!

You got them situated very nicely there. This will be fun and interresting to see.
What with all our documentations this summer we are really building the bugfiles well. These 'stage' pics are going to be the best anywhere on the net in no time at all!

Claps and whistles!

I finally got the Tersa thread loaded in, lol. If y'all would like to take a peek here is the link:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/769278/

debnes

Tersa kinda stole the show today here today, but I did have two other coming out adventures....Here is the Black ST, the other 2 in the ox will likely eclose tomorrow.


He flew off a few feet and landed on a zinnia> Didn't want any more love from us, lol.

You are making me so excited about mine eclosing!!! He's beautiful!

Then I had another customer waiting in line ... This Giant ST... it was one of the fatter GST cats I have raised. As a butterfly, really huge :-o


It was hard to shoot this pic, I had to settle for a top view..

Here's one of my Spicebush Swallowtails that have been eclosing. Oh, and I know how big those GST cats can get.

Nice pictures one and all. I haven't had the pleasure of raising the Pipevines or Tersa yet. Got to go look at Debnes' thread on those so I can ooh and ah.

Shes beautiful Linda!
We'll begin hoping for next year now on those for this garden.. The spicebushes will be bigger then and might even bloom. I wanted to see the blooms this year in order to gender these 2 plants and if I needed. Then get more if they are the same sex. The fragrance of pollination would certainly get them to come. Plus I want fruit on them for the birdies.
Have any of your spicebushes bloomed?

Today we released 3 Cloudless Sulphurs and 1 Black ST. I waited until my SIL got here before releasing them. She got me started on Candletrees (cassia alata), about 18 years ago. I just had to show her what Cassia is really for.. Not just eye candy.

They all flew off except this one>

Debnes

Deb, my spicebush plants haven't bloomed. I don't know...maybe they would have already if they weren't stripped by cats every year. Oh, and I cat-napped again. My name is Linda and I'm a cat-napper. Hehe!
The other Buckeye cat hasn't pupated yet...although I suspect it has stopped eating. But I brought a smaller cat home anyway. I found one single agalinis plant in the area. Surely there's more!
And here's one of the TST cats...all nice and green now! One more color change to go.

Linda, what host plant did you use to attract the Tiger Swallowtails? I have a couple of small Tulip Poplars, but no luck so far.

Mark

Here they used Texas Ash and Escarpment Black Cherry, Mark. Sometimes it takes patience. It took a long time until I found any TST eggs, even though those trees were here for quite some time.

Super nice Linda!
What a cutie cat.. I am so glad one of us got to raise one this year. I had my chance and blew it by not having the right cage to protect them from a tiny predator. :-
I just love those faces!

Debnes

I hope one day that I will find a TST cat, they are so cute!
I have given up on raising the Gulf Fritillary, Every one I have brought in died.
I want to thank everyone on here for all there shared knoweledge and help. If you didnt make it sound so easy, I probably never would have tried. You have been the reason that I have released...
52 Monarchs...36 male 16 female
5 Black Swallowtails
3 yellow sulphurs
4 Orange sulphurs 2 male 2 female.

These are the 2 Orange sulphurs. both male

chris

Wow, did he find a female quick. About 3 min.

Chris, I'm so proud of you!

Me too Chris! Great going!

Me three!!! Congrats on raising and releasing all those butterflies :o)

~ Cat

Me 4, WTG Chris! You are officially a butterfly farmer!

Linda, love the TST cat, those 'eyes' are adorable.

Great photos everyone! Y'all have been very busy raising and releasing! Congrats to Chris on all his outstanding releases! As well as everyone else's great work!

Still not much going on here in my neck of the woods, but I did see a tattered female Monarch nectaring on one of my Zinnia blooms. She was missing wing parts and a couple legs .... poor thing! I will be looking around my garden beds now in hopes she laid eggs and some cats survived all the predators! I have volunteer Milkweed all over my gardens now. Must've been all those floating seeds last fall! :-)

Here's hoping this is just the beginning of another 5-600 this year Becky. Then I can start preparing my gardens for next year while I watch you release butterflies. :-S It's been a busy summer here. I got a feeling they will be coming right to you in the next week or so.

One monarch I released this year stands out. She was very dark, and hardly any orange/ I keep thinking she might pop up in some of these pics and I would recognize her, lol! This is one I got a movie of too.

Debnes

Deb, I had one like that! So surprising!
Raising these butterflies has really opened my eyes to understanding their high mortality rate. If they make it from egg hatching to forming their crystalis, they still have a hurtle to jump just trying to dry their wings in order to fly. Escpecially with the Monarchs, I've noticed, many can't even uncurl correctly. I though maybe I had strung some up wrong, or placed them in the cage where they fell on their backs until I actually watched some eclose with extremely crumpled wings. Yesterday, eleven eclosed but I only released 5 out of that group. Today, wasn't much better; I released 4 out 9 that successfully uncurled. Sure is sad for those left unable to fly. My heart just breaks when I place them on the flowers in hopes that maybe the sun will help them finish uncurling. I just walk away and try not look for them later. (but I do). What do y'all do with the ones that don't uncurl? I'm I having too many casualities compared to everyone else that raises them? I'm having so many just flopping around, til it's just about to kill me watching them in agony.

When any butterfly first ecloses it is in a very vunerable state, and yes they do flop around if on the bottom of the cage. When they eclose their wings are crumpled, that is normal, then it needs something to crawl up on so the wings hang down. It also should not be moved until it is completely dry. Interrupting the process, from a fall or not being able to crawl up and hang, will cause the wings to be distorted permantly.

We all learn as we attempt to help, don't give up. There is success on the horizion!

This message was edited Sep 11, 2007 5:48 PM

I feel better today. Three eclosed this morning and all three of them look perfect! Thanks for the pep talk, Sheila.

She is gorgeous, Debnes!! A very special one indeed. :)

Those are very scary mortality rates. :( Makes me a bit nervous -- what if I'm at work when they eclose and something bad happens? Makes me wonder if the bins I have them in will be large enough -- I'm sure they are, but still, as a newbie to all of this, I still wonder.

I had one tiny instar die yesterday. Don't know what happened there, and I'm going to try not to dwell on it too much. Maybe it just wasn't healthy to begin with. The other 6 are doing great, and one is starting to pupate this morning with two close behind it. So far, that's 7 out of 8 BST that are doing well so far.

Does anyone have any pictures of what the BST chrysilis looks like when it starts to eclose? What signs to look for, anything like that? We're getting close to the "cut-off" date, and I need all the advice I can get -- unless it decides to overwinter. :)

Thanks

Here is a sweet Sulphur I released in the rain yesterday. There was a GST bt he took off and hid somewhere. They were ready to be let out.

Cloudless Sulphur crawled up on the cassia and found good shelter.

Lol, Thanks for all the pats on the back, but without Daves, I never would have done this!
My kids and even hubby have enjoyed watching the different stages and release.


Do butterflies only live a few weeks? I now the monarchs migrate to becky and Debs house, but other than them I have no idea.

Is there a site that will tell me which butterflies migrate and which just live a short time.

Now there are new 1st stage monarch cats on the milkweed again. Will they have enough time to grow and migrate or are they goners. There are also many 1&2 stage gulf fritillary cats on the passion vine.

CordelleDeb, I was afraid of the casualty I was having too. After hearing that I only had to 1 out of 100 successful release to break even, I was able to lighten up. Then everything just started working. Very few losses after that. According to all the successful releases you have had, you are wayyyyyy ahead of nature. Congrats! My husband says we are upsetting the ecology! LOL
chris

Oh Chris, lol
I hear that all the time DH tases me and says in a weird voice, "you're tampering with nature..". I tell him, "yes, tampering more life out of it!" Pic of your DD is precious with the perfect jewlery for a child..
Chris the Monarchs leave here and fly through during migration, and go to Cat's and Becky's house, ( Mellie's and Lucy's, and all in FL). I would be surprised to get anymore Monarchs here now that the temps dropped 20 or more today. It's 72 now at 11:30 am.

As far as the length of life goes- There are certain species that live just a few days, just long enough to mate and die. Then there are most that live only a month. Then there are quite a few that live 9 months or longer. Those mainly being Brushfoots and Swallowtails, depending on the time of year they hatch and whether they hibernate or migrate. Also whether they meet with the peril of predators or chemicals.

It must be a wonderful capsule of life. To them, it is all they know, and it's grand enough. I don't think our creator would short change them for the amount of joy they bring, so I accept the grandness in whatever time they have.

Debnes

Thanks for the info. It is still 72 degrees when I wake up at 5:30 so maybe the tiny monarch and gulf frit cats have a chance to grow before the cold comes in. A bit harsh, but when I told DH that I am not bringing any more this year, he said good, they will be bird food. I love my birds and they were part of this family first but now that I am a "butterfly farmer" ( LOL, according to fly-girl) it makes that hard to think of.

Deb's last paragragh...Very well said!

chris

This message was edited Sep 11, 2007 5:21 PM

Icf....I read somewhere that the Monarchs don't start migrating until the temp gets to 51 degrees. Might check that out though, I do have senior moments!

IA LIly.... Here is a couple of pics that may or may not help with BST's time to eclose.

This one at the top eclosed this morning. Even though it is empty you can see the color an fullness is different.

Here the one in the middle looks to me like it may eclose tomorrow then perhaps the greener one. It is slightly changing. They get to where the green looks like it is wet tissue paper to me.

Thank you Sheila!! That helps. So, they turn a darker green, and look kinda wet as they get closer to eclosing. Here's mine today (it pupated on September 3rd).
I'm sorry to be a pain, but unless I know what to expect, I ask many questions so I can find out what's going on. :)

They are plumper also. They don't look wet necessarily, just the color darkens and gets transparent looking on the green especially. You might put paper towels underneath also because they will express the excess fluid during the process of drying their wings.

Excellent work everyone, ((..claps, whistles and applaudes..))/

Good words Sheila, Paper towels are a lifesaver.. I put it under them all the time now as a segway to a good climbing spot.

Lily the BST chrysalis looks very healthy!

I have made a new thread, please join me there :-S
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/770313/

Debnes