Melanie - Very cool! Your mystery cat wouldn't possible be a butterfly such as a hairstreak or something? I just don't recognize the cat. Though you are probably right that it is a moth. Did it hang to form it's chrysalis/cocoon? Or roll up? Maybe a leaf-roller of some kind? I don't know. Just making wild guesses! lol
Great shot of the sulphur cat and skipper!
I have seen sulphers, great southern whites, monarchs, skippers, Gulf Fritillaries, and a Queen today. But I was working in the yard and didn't have my camera with me. I know ... bad Becky!
DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 33
The mystery cat was rolled up in a leaf when I found him. When he made his cocoon he did roll the leaf up. I got worried about him and couldn't see through all the silk so I gently pulled it apart and there he was. I think he's one of the Spring Moths. I kept seeing White Spring Moths and Gray Spring Moths when searching and they look very similar. I guess we'll know when he comes out, but until then it's fun to guess!
Melanie
Had to show this photo. This one is on a boat 70 miles offshore of Nigeria.
My neice is a subsea engineer and is stationed in Nigeria at this time. Their vessel is 70 miles offshore. She says they have hundreds of butterflies and moths on the vessel and have no idea where they all came from. Seems really freaky to think of all those critters on a boat out in the middle of the ocean!!!
Guess perhaps they are migrating and take a rest stop? But 70 miles away from land?
Don't know what this is...perhaps someone can identify it. I am leaning towards moth but am at a loss when it comes to foreign species. Her hand is in the photo for a size reference.
~ Cat
ps...pretty neat to know I have my neice taking photos of butterflies and moths for me on her trips around the world. She gets to go to Paris, Korea, Scotland, Nigeria and other places I can't remember!!!
Another Zebra Longwing from yesterday.
Wow, I haven't been on this forum before. I love it! This Pipevine Swallowtail was laying eggs on my Dutchman's Pipevine this morning.
These are the eggs!
I also planted a Paw Paw tree, but I was told not to get too excited b/c there are so few Paw Paw's in Harris County that Zebra longtwings skip right over us. Loved your shots of them Elaine and gardenpom!
Welcome to the Forum, Elphaba! Great shots of the Pipevine butterfly and it's eggs! You should add them to BugFiles! :-)
http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/46/
I saw my first butterfly here today!!! A Cabbage White, which is a shame because there is nothing for it to lay its eggs on...not much nectar, either, but he went to some of the short blue flowering bulbs I have for a little while.
I was i nFlorida and saw several butterflies I have never seen before. Of course, that just means I don't know their names, either :))
Suzy
Elphaba, welcome! And it's the Zebra Swallowtail that uses PawPaw. My mom always says longwing when she means swallowtail and vice versa. I usually know what she means. I think I'm the only one here raising them, and I pilfer mine from a piece of land with a certain designation (pleading the 5th here).
I am soooo tired. I've been meaning to clean up and rearrange my bromeliads. Since next week is the big USF spring plant festival, I figured I'd better clean before I brought a whole bunch of new plants home. There was a lot of good butterfly action today. I saw several swallowtails - none of which decided to stop. : ( There was the usual Gulf Frits, and I had a Zebra Longwing fly over my head while I was photographing a crescent. The sulphurs were all over and I'm seeing some Orange ones in addition to the usual Yellow guys.
Speaking of sulphurs...so I brought my caterpillars inside and apparently my cassias now look empty. This Cloudless Sulphur decided she would refill my plant. I have a senna too, but they don't seem to have found it yet.
And for those who think I take great photographs, I had to take about a dozen to get this one shot! So don't think you can't get great photos, too. You just have to take a lot of pictures to get one gem.
Mellie, thanks! I was thinking it was a Zebra Swallowtail but then I saw the post of the longtail and didn't think there could be two zebras! Good to know.
Is this a Palamedes? Only one shot of the underside came out at all and there's smudged yellow and a few spots of red but most of it is behind a leaf.
Man, while I was typing one of my zebra STs made its chrysalis. I just put some food in there not 15 minutes ago. They always wait until you're not looking. I have another one that did his massive poo (gut purge) yesterday and had seemed to find a good place to settle down. When I was feeding them I noticed he was laying on the bottom of the cage curled up like they are in their sling. I got totally worried and picked him up with a leaf. He didn't seem to be moving and I thought he was dead. I poked him a little with the leaf, thought I saw a twitch, but I wasn't sure. Poked him some more and - out came those stinkhorns! Whew! Nothing like a noxious smell to let me know he's still alive. I'm not sure what happened to him though. It's like he got into position to make a chrysalis but without going into a sling. I know they can survive without being in a sling so I put him in his own little Gladware container. I know they have to attach their cremaster to something (right?) and he seemed to be flexing his booty like he was looking for something. I cut a little piece of cheesecloth and laid him on it. He attached to it so I hope he'll be ok. Poor little guy has me worried.
Back to my sightings, here's one of the crescents I saw. I must get them more in the spring because last year I only saw one or two and today there were three flying around.
Nope, that would be a Polydamas. And it looks like she wants to lay eggs on your pipevine (their host plant). Send her my way! Polydamas have just the one yellow line shaped like a U across their wings. I think they're the plainest swallowtail I see. Some people call them "Gold Rim" STs; I guess because of how the line arcs around the "rim" of their wings.
Here's a top view of my crescent. We get the Phaeon and the Pearl Crescent here and I can never tell them apart.
Edited to say:
According to my book, that cream colored band on the top of the wing means it's a Phaeon. Since I see that they use frogfruit as a host, that totally explains why they're hanging out in my neighborhood.
Melanie
This message was edited Apr 5, 2008 5:48 PM
Thanks for the ID! I knew that the Palamedes didn't sound right. I couldn't find it in my book because it's only mentioned as a sidebar on the Pipevine Swallowtail. It says that it's extremely rare in our area and should never be expected. That is so not true! I see them all summer long.
Love the crescents!
Great butterfly photos ya'll!!! More so when they are ovipositing :o)
Of which, I was at the park today for our month meeting and watched a Mallow Scrub Hairstreak laying eggs on the waltheria indica.
~ Cat
Illoquin(Suzy), There must be something around for your cabbage white, wouldn't you think? I don't know if they overwinter in their cocoons (or whatever you call those things) or not. They must, tho. Let us know if you see anymore. : )
I've noticed quite a few butterflies around lately, but the last couple of days, the wind seems to be too strong for seeing very many. I did noticed a bunch of white and yellow ones today, while driving to Sarasota. I was telling my DH, WATCH OUT, here comes a BF across the road. It's a wonder he didn't wreck us. LOL
Lucy/Blueglancer, Guess what! I *do* have other things. They use Hesperis as host, and I have that. It isn't even in the same family, so who woulda thunk it? LOL!
I was sort of thinking he'd be SOL because I don't have any cabbage in yet. I hope he is happy with the slim pickins' of flowers I have blooming. We've only had 2 days of spring, no matter what the calendar says.
Suzy
Great pic of the owl-eyed butterfly Cat.. Amazing that all those guys are able to remain on the boat!! Love the Hairstreak!! I have been seeing the Gray ones.. They look like flying dimes.
Nice ZLW pic GP!
Welcome aboard Elphaba!! What nice pics of the PVST. Becky's right they should be in the BFiles. Nice one of the PolyD ST too! Looks like your Pipevine will be very busy doing it's job!!
I have several species of Pipevine and usually get a good population of the cats and release a fair share of the PVST butterflies. Such cool cats they are!! I love how they lumber along on the vines.
Here is a pic of the Aristolochia macrophylla.. Turns out it is as Jim Rogers said, an early bloomer. The pipe blooms are only about 3 inches long.
Hiya Suzy! The Cabbage Whites seem to be one of the first showing up here too. I planted some Mustard Greens last fall and they are getting huge.. They grow fast. I also planted some Dutch Round Cabbage I got for pennies a pack at the 99c store. WM has a cheap seed rack with seeds for 10c a pack.
Funny thing too... I had a "bird-planted" plant I suspected was a brassica family plant and it turns out to be Canola. This too is a host plant for Cabbage white....
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/37227/
There are tons of this kind of plant growing out in the wild around your home, as is the case here.
Here is a pic of the bloom with a Painted Lady having some of the nectar
A few more pics from the past day or so...
Been seeing quite a few Monarchs, mostly males.
Made a new batch of brew/bait for all the brushfoots
http://www.theletteroflove.com/wallpaper/?cat=13&paged=2
Here I have a taker (A Red Admiral)...and a fruit fly hovering over.
This is the whole tray I just put up so that I could serve them cantaloupe with the brew...
Here is a Giant ST coming in for some nectar.
A little Tropical Checkered ... Skipping through, as skippers do so well.
I have lots of Malva (hollyhock) coming up in the bed this little one was skipping across.
That's about it for now.
Hugs to all!!
Debnes
I was looking for a bug identification and saw this posting for an ID on these butterflies. I thought some of you experts might want to help out. Here's the link: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/831293/
So many pretty butterflies! It rained here pretty much all day, but I went and picked some pawpaw in between showers. I found two more caterpillars and brought them home. One that I found had just finished molting so I took a picture so you can see what molting in the wild looks like. It's so easy to forget that the caterpillars in the wild have to go through all the scary stages of metamorphosis without protection from us humans. I did find the remaining top of a chrysalis on a pawpaw and that made me feel good. I also had one Zebra Swallowtail fly by me - probably getting a snack before the next rain storm.
My ZST cat that didn't make his sling successfully became a chrysalis a few hours ago. I'm still not sure what happened that he didn't make a sling. Mom thinks he did but that one of the other cats must have knocked him down. Mom thinks all of the cats so far this year are mean. I think during the winter break she forgot how bad their osmeterium smelled and has now been reminded several times over. I saw the area where the cat had settled in and there's not even a mat of silk like I would expect, so I'm not sure what happened. I'm just glad he made his chrysalis.
For those of you who want pawpaw seeds - the plants are currently making fruit! So give it a few more weeks (months?) and I'll see what I can do. : )
Melanie
A few Monarch shots from today.
This one was depositing eggs.
I call this a Black Swallowtail, not sure if that is right.
Palamedes, I think?
I was out finding Juniper Hairstreaks all over today! Look at this Antelope Horns bloom. They are just starting to bloom lately. WOOHOO! Talk about multiple butterflies on one bloom!
There's a few Juniper Hairstreak butterflies also on this Redroot, Ceanothus sp. But you have to look closer to see them. This must be their the beginning of their big population boom.
Wow, LindaTX8, that is one cool picture! Are there 7 bfs?
gardenpom, lovely shots of the monarchs!
I think there are 8 on that Antelope Horns bloom!
That must be a record!
I just had to look at it again, that is so neat.
:-)
Cathy
Gardenpom, your swallowtail lacks the diagonal line on the underside to be a Palamedes. From what I can see of the top I think it's a Polydamas - which apparently everyone keeps seeing but me! I have plenty of pipevine; why can't they find it?
Melanie
Here is a very very poor picture of 2 Hummingbird Moths nectering from the Homestead Verbena. I need to pull out the manual of my new digitial camera and learn how to make better use of it.
Carla
Carla....lucky you! That is truly something to be able to see two hummingbird moths nectaring. I haven't even seen one!!!
~ Cat
Nice shots GP!!
and Linda.. love the Antelope Horns, getting off to a great start you all!
I agree with Cat, Carla... Neat to see 2 HBSMs at once!
Debnes
Love those hummingbird moths! I haven't seen any this year yet.
This is a Snout butterfly that I took a picture of yesterday at the pond.
