I have a BST (I assume) cat that is white rather than green. Is there some reason for this or is it just some kind of color morph?
Black Swallowtail Caterpillar white rather than green?
www.butterfliesandmoths/gallery.org is a good website for identification. He sure is pretty,
Elaine
One of my books says the caterpillars range from white to leaf green. Another books says they can be white or green with most of them being green. So it looks like you've just got a rare one there!
Melanie
Guess what I've found munching on my brugs.? I decided it's too cute so I rescued it from the plant. Kept the leave in water, also added a young seedling of brug for its enjoyment in my cage. While looking for a seedling to feed this big fella. I found another instar in the area. Guess what? The two will keep each other company.
Kim
Oooops, plexippus, sorry I meant to post this on Mellanie's thread instead.
I have some really weird colored BST's this year too. A couple look really black with a few white stripes, one looks almost a bluish gray color. So far they are all acting like BST's so I am assuming that is what they are. But just some realy weird coloring. One had a lot of orange on it, he was really beautiful until he went into the next instar. He was still beautiful but lost some of the orange.
Leslie
Yea...I've got quite a few different color variations on my BST cats as well. And I was wondering, my butterfly book has two pics of eastern bsts...one is mostly black and blue and the other has the yellow dots along the bottom of the wings. Is one male and one female or are they just variations?
Kim
This shot in bug files shows both. http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/5947/
I have had several variations in color at different times no reason. They were raised in same cage ate the same thing and were in the same instar.
I searched the web for answers and found none.
Some swallowtails are like that. The Zebra Swallowtail cat has a dark brown version and a green version so maybe this is similar.
I have about half a dozen of the kind on the right in the photo that are stripping my flowering dill bare.
That is a good thing Smallplot. But if you don't want them eating that, you can transfer them to parsley, even the grocery store variety. Just wash whatever you get very well and put it in a wet floral foam block covered with foil or a plastic wrap. You can put them in a few containers with the mesh front. The 'sticky' post (at the top of this forum) shows an easy way to make a lot of cages work.
I don't know much about cats or butterflies. I collected some of the dill and brought it inside. They can have the rest as they seem to be enjoying it. Actually, looking at them close-up I can't tell which end it is which. Where will they go from here? Will they make cocoons on the dill branches? Do birds eat them?
Yes and lots of other insects like wasps and praying mantis do too. Here is my blog on butterfly raising for the what comes next part.
http://davesgarden.com/tools/blog/index.php?tabid=9167
This message was edited Jul 4, 2008 2:28 PM
Sheila,
I couldn't access your blog from that link. The cats have disappeared now. Perhaps eaten by birds.
I hope not. I had so many cats this last month I left four out and over night three dissappeared. I kept looking and found one attached in the comma form to ground cover that is running up a stone wall. It was about four foot from the bed of parsley. So look around.
Smallplot.... Click on my ID and look at my diary from there.
Okay, there we go! I was able to access your diary when I clicked on your ID Sheila. In the future I will collect the cats and bring them in. I will try looking for the ones that disappeared. Thanks for the tutorial! Bob
Here is my simple set up with my overload. Had so many I had to turn the cages sideways to get them all on the shelves!
Holy Mackrel ~!