Alright...stop with the Polydamas!!! GRRRRR!!! Am still waiting for them to come use the dutchman's pipevines I have in my yard - still no takers :o(
Great Imperial Moth - those buggers are huge! I got to see one when I was in Georgia a few months ago.
Nice Red Admiral - you are so right...those buggers are hard to photograph.
Cool moth Border - some moths are hard to ID - more so when there aren't very many moth guide books on the market.
Thanks ya'll for the interesting info about the leaf hoppers. I had no idea they were bad bugs - I never get them in my yard. Wil let the butterfly park manager know. They were on a Guamuchil Tree - which is the only one the park has - that tree is the larval host for the Red Bordered Pixie butterfly.
~ Cat
DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 51
Believe me, if I could give you some of the Polydamas cats I would! There's so many of them and pipevine is expensive! I'll have to go by the museum and get them some more food.
Melanie
Guess they are just like the Pipevine Swallowtails we have here. We get them by the hundreds :o)
On a positive note...had a Julia Longwing in my yard again today. This time it was flitting on the side of the house where I have a huge passion vine growing. Am hoping it's a female and it laid eggs. Did find eggs but they are probably Gulf Frits - as there are already GF caterpillars feeding on that vine.
Not sure what the passion vine is though...the GFs have ignored it for the past three years. Not sure why they decided to use it now.
Does anyone know what kind this is?
~ Cat
Hi Cat~ Could it be this passi?:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1193/
Lily - that sure looks like the bloom and flowers!!!
Does anyone have Gulf Frits that use this species p. edulis? Like I said...they've ignored it for the past three years but are now using it. Which strikes me as odd because the plant is huge...I mean huge. I cut it back drastically each year. Oh well, am happy they are using it...it gives the p. incense and p. boomerang a bit of breathing room...they always chew that to those bare stem.
~ Cat
I've never seen so many caterpillars as you have, Mellie! I hope they all make it!
I went out late yesterday afternoon after the temp warmed up and the sun was out. I saw several skippers flitting about the flowers and a bumblebee or two and a honeybee, too. Also, I saw two small gold-colored butterflies which I had never seen before in my garden. I managed to get a picture of one of them. The top side of the wings are a darker gold than the underside. I'm sure one of you can ID it for me, please?
Marilyn, I gathered that maybe a variation of Sulpher? Your Salvia is so gorgeous!!!
Cat.~ I don't know about P. edulis. I've a similiar passi. the hardy carulea (?), the flowers are similiar to edulis but the leaves structure are slightly different (they're somewhat more slender and darker green). I understood that G.F. will use this type of passi as well, although, in the past 3-4 years that I've had carulea, G.F. haven't used them yet. Just my old fashion Maypop (incarnata) that proven to be their fav. cuisine. Here is the carulea:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/10393/
Definitely a sulphur there. Do you get Orange-Barred Sulphurs up there? That's what your description and picture made me think of.
I have p. caerulea, maypop, and p. lutea. So far the caerulea has been the favorite but I think that's just because it's bigger. The Zebra Longwings seem to like the lutea.
One of the good (or bad) things about Polydamas is that they have a very high success rate. We have them in swarms like this at the museum as well. I think about half the butterflies in the flight cage are Polydamas. It's nice to have them as a sure thing when all the other butterfly populations can vary.
Melanie
Thank you Melanie. A fellow over on the weather thread gave me a link about sulphurs. I went to it and I certainly didn't know that there were so many different kinds of sulphurs! I looked at the Clouded Sulphur (as opposed to the Cloudless Sulphur) but I haven't looked at the Orange-barred Sulphur yet. I'm getting ready to leave but when I get back home later this afternoon, I will check it out. Thanks again.
Marilyn
Here's a different pic of the butterfly in question (feeding on Hot Lips Salvia)
Now sulfers are hard to get pics of -- nice job!
I'm not looking for butterflies anymore. Today, has been a day of butterfly massacre. The big anole no longer misses, apparently ever.
Here's a lovely Monarch seconds before the fatal blow.
This one is rated "R" for violence. The Anole with the Monarch's head in its mouth. The Monarch got away, but it's dying.
Here is the first Painted Lady that I've seen in my yard ever.
Anole with his catch. Again, sensitive audience members don't look.
Elphaba--great pictures! Amazing, in fact! Yes, very graphic, but the anoles have to eat, too---it's "the law of the jungle".
Was it the Painted lady that felt prey to the Anole on the second one? Shucks!!! I didn't particularly like to witness that is for sure. But likes Marilyn has mentioned; reality is "Law of the jungle" and it bites!!!
It was the Painted Lady! I couldn't believe it. I saved her twice and then the third time I thought he was too far away from her, but I was wrong. I know that's nature, but I feel traumatized!
I went back out and finally got a few sulfer shots. Unfortunately, they are kind of sun bleached. I find Sulfers almost impossible to capture. If this one hadn't stopped to lay a few eggs, I'd never have gotten the shot. I have no idea what kind of sulfer. She was very large and seemed to be orange and yellow.
Here's another shot. She's laying eggs on a Cassia if that helps. All sulfers like Cassias though right?
Sounds like the same visitor I had today - an Orange Barred Sulphur laying eggs!
This Frit was trying hard to get some loving, but she was not having it. Mom thought it was neat how the females hold their wings up to keep the males off.
The White Peacock was enjoying some porterweed as Mom and I left to go to Borders.
But when we came home there was a huge surprise waiting for us on the front door - my first Red-Spotted Purple! This is only the second one I've ever seen and the first in Florida.
I had to know for sure so I sneaked up and grabbed it! I hope it's a she and that she found my cherry tree.
I took her over to the cherry tree and she let me take a few more pictures, but then she flew off to the oak tree. This RSP was very old judging from the loss of scales and general condition. But I was so excited to see one!! I hope this isn't some fluke but a sign of things to come!
Melanie
You have cherry trees? I thought you had to live up north to grow cherries? Amazing pics BTW! I'd love to see an Red-spotted Purple and a White Peacock, but then my anole would just eat them!
I have a Black Cherry (prunus serotina). They're native. I also hear the Red-Spotted Purples will use Cherry Laurels which there are a lot of here. Some of my books also list hawthornes as a host and I've got two kinds of those in the yard (Mayhaw and Parsley Hawthorne).
That anole of yours must be stuffed by now. Thanks goodness I've never seen my anoles eat a butterfly. I'd probably cry.
Melanie
I'm with Melanie, I'd probably cry. It gave me a jolt to just see the pictures.... I saw a Painted Lady today, one since a long while, but the sun wasn't out much even the flower bed was on the Southern side. The sun moves, more shadow, and the butterfly flew off to sun bathe else where!
I still saw a few Sulphers around. Got Black Cherry, and did have RSP, yeah!
I have started having more Praying Mantis and now have about 5 Anoles this year in various sizes. I think it helt down my bf egg population. I need to research and find out what his enemy is.
I think a BB gun is the proper enemy :o)
Thanks for sharing that anole photo. I was telling folks in the Texas Gardening forum that I toss them over the fence into the neighbor's yard and someone asked why I do that since they eat all kinds of bad bugs...I referenced your photo posting.
Elphaba...we don't get RSP here but we do get White Peacocks in big numbers this time of the year.
We had our fall butterfly count today - it started out cloudy and foggy and it was slow but it picked up around noon. I got the perfect photo of a Two-barred Flasher skipper. This guy was just begging for people to take his photo!!!
~ Cat
Also got a photo of a worn male Pavon Emperor - these are a tad rare for us but we get to see a couple each fall season. Was able to catch the bluish purple sheen on the male. When the sun or a camera flash hits it just right - you get a gorgeous show of color :o)
~ Cat
A nice Zilpa Longtail skipper (Chioides zilpa) :o)
~ Cat
and a Gold-spotted Aguna (Aguna asander). Guess you could say this is our Texas answer to ya'lls Silver-spotted Skipper :o)
~ Cat
This message was edited Oct 25, 2008 9:48 PM
Beautiful Two-barred Flasher, cat! and the others, too.
I got some good photos of an American Painted Lady yesterday afternoon. Our temp is supposed to get down to 32º tomorrow night. What happens to butterflies in the winter--do they die or do they hibernate? You can tell I'm a newbie at this sort of thing--LOL
Here's another one of the "Lady" with wings open. It appeared to be posing for me.
and this little skipper seemed to be trying to "romance" the Lady!
Cat you get all kinds of tropical and sub tropical butterflies in your neck of the woods don't you. That green Malchite (?) is one of the prettiest you've posted. No chance I'd see one in Georgia, huh?
I live NW of San Antonio and I've never seen a Malachite either. I get a few kinds that are sort of tropical, but those just won't come up here to visit. We've already had one night where it got down to 39 degrees in my hilly area, so I don't really blame them for staying away.
Yeppers, we get strays and tropicals from Mexico and further south.
The malachites are mainly found in southern Texas and southern Florida but BAMONA shows a county in Kansas too.
Guess if they decided to fly from Texas to Florida it might could happen :o)
As the years go by we are getting more and more rare strays from areas further south than us...so perhaps they will eventually make it further north to ya'll.
Wish ya'll could have been here on Saturday for our butterfly count - we saw 39 malachites. A couple of weeks ago one of the other parks reported 50+
and one was reported 10/09/08 in San Antonio.
~ Cat
Wow, Cat, you really do live in butterfly heaven. Those are amazing!
Marsue, beautiful shots and flowers!
Enemy of anoles -- birds. Sometimes, I protect the anoles from the birds and then I protect the butterflies from the anoles! They do eat lots of bad things like roaches and flies. Also, yesterday, the same big anole tried to get a monarch and a long-tailed skipper and missed both times! Maybe the ones he caught were weak links in the gene pool.
Here's a little anole being good --eating an annoying fly after passing up a monarch.
Here's a fun pic from yesterday, a monarch and a bee.
