Bugfolks

This is a post for those of you who are dreaming about spring.  Mike and I visited southern Texas at the end of January, and though it wasn't the best time for butterflies there, we saw lots of them - mostly species I had never seen before.  It was fun to see so many new species, and to see them in January!

These are butterflies from the NABA Butterfly Park in Mission, TX and several state parks in the Mission area. (I'll do another - smaller - post with species we saw in Big Bend National Park.)

This first one was the best butterfly of the trip - as large as a Tiger Swallowtail and brilliantly colored.   It's a Malachite - Siproeta stelenes

Crimson Patch - Chlosyne janais

The caterpillar of a Crimson Patch Butterfly

The caterpillar's food plant - Smallflower Wrightwort (Carlowrightia parvifolia)

Dusky Blue Groundstreak - Calycopis isobeon

Carolina Satyr - Hermeuptychia sosybius (Thanks to Dave Hanson for the ID)

Gulf Fritillary - Agraulis vanillae

Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak - Strymon bazochii

Top side of the Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak

Large Orange Sulphur - Phoebis agarithe

Laviana White Skipper - Heliopetes laviana

Mimosa Yellow - Eurema nise

Queen - Danaus gilippus

Mating Queens

Reakirt's Blue - Hemiargus isola

Texan Crescent - Phyciodes texana

Tropical Checkered Skipper - Pyrgus oileus

Common Checkered Skipper (Pyrgus communis)

Whirlabout - Polites vibex

White Peacock - Anartia jatrophae

There were several skippers that I couldn't identify - some that looked like dark grass skippers, and others that had long tails.

I saw one beautiful little moth - it's one of the wave moths - Idaea sp.

A Six-spotted Milkweed Bug - Oncopeltus sexmaculatus

American Snout

Empress Leilia

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak - Strymon istapa

Monarch - Danaus plexippus
I didn't know any of them spent the winter in Texas.

Little Yellow (Pyrisitia lisa)

Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon)

Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia)

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) - the most familiar butterfly I saw.

This is a Robber Fly (Efferia sp.) - a weird looking creature. It was sitting still in the sand - probably waiting for some prey to come along.

Marcie O'Connor

back in Buffalo County, Wisconsin

Please bear with me as this post may be a bit heavy on photos.  In the last entry, I described my rearing setup and the first two caterpillars which I released to pupate.  The caterpillars shown below are all over-wintering in the "bug cage" I assembled out of a wire trash can and an aluminum mesh lid cut from an old window screen:

The lid is held in place with twist ties; so far it has kept the raccoons and other critters at bay.  There is a raised platform in the bottom to keep the cocoons elevated, and the paper towels provide protection from the elements.  I keep the whole setup under a bench so it doesn't get waterlogged every time it rains (and also to make it inconspicuous to a couple of neighbor kids who kill bugs for amusement.)  I mist the cocoons with distilled water about twice a week.

I found this Polyphemus caterpillar toward the beginning of September while I was looking for slug caterpillars...  I actually thought it was a slug caterpillar at first glance, but its head wasn't drawn into the body.  The host plant is Water oak, Quercus nigra.

He/she didn't change as dramatically as the Hickory Horned Devil between molts.  Even so, the progression is quite apparent.  This photo was taken 9 days later...

And 2 weeks after that...

Within just a few days, he had spun a cocoon amongst the leaves of his food plant...

The next caterpillar I brought home to raise really was a slug caterpillar: a Smaller Parasa.  I told my husband I wouldn't keep any stinging 'pillars, but it was just too neat to resist!    This one was discovered in early October and ate American hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana.

After 4 days...

Another week later...

He only molted once after I acquired him.  When the time came to form a cocoon, he spun it against the lid of the container.  You can see the green lid inside the "cage" in the first photo.

In mid-October, I came across some Giant Swallowtail caterpillars on Common Hoptree, Ptelea trifoliata.  Since I've never seen the adult butterfly, I decided to add one to my growing menagerie.

It only took 2 days to start pupating...

I started to worry that something had gone wrong when it stayed like this for another 48 hours; however, on the third day, it became a proper chrysalis...

I found the final caterpillar in late October: a Frosted Dagger moth.  As far as I can tell, these guys only eat Hazel Alder, Alnus serrulata, and there are no photos of the adult anywhere on the internet.  The larva looks like this...

I had read in David L. Wagner's book Caterpillars of Eastern North America that most dagger moths require "soft (dead) wood in which to tunnel," and that "some make a hardened cocoon by adding bits of chewed wood to the wall of the cocoon as it is being spun."  That is exactly what this one did...

Hopefully they will all emerge successfully when they're ready, and I'll be able to add images of the adults!

Carmen Champagne

Mike and I found a beautiful big caterpillar crawling across the driveway a few days ago.  It's a Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar (Ecpantheria scribonia).

It's very striking - about 2 1/2 inches long, with shiny black bristles and bright red bands and spiracles.

It rolls up into a tight circle when I disturb it.

It will spend the winter as an almost grown caterpillar, and make its cocoon in the spring.  I kept it in a cage for a few days and it happily ate lilac leaves.  But I decided I didn't want to risk trying to keep over the winter, so I released it.

One of my slug caterpillars made a cocoon.  It's either the Jeweled Tailed Slug caterpillar, or the Yellow Shouldered Slug caterpillar.  When I looked through the leaves where they were hanging out, they had both disappeared, and I found one cocoon.  It's quite small - about 1/2 an inch long.  Hopefully I'll be able to watch it next spring and see what comes out.

My Giant Swallowtail caterpillars are continuing to grow.  It's a race to see if they can finish their caterpillar stages before the leaves of the prickly ash drop off.

This is one of the bigger ones - it's about 2 inches long.

I've got them in separate cages now - ice cream buckets with lids cut open and lined with plastic screening.

I thought I would show you what my caterpillar raising set up looks like.  This is on our screened porch, so they're exposed to outside temperatures.

The small cages on the shelves are for smaller caterpillars, the large ones on the floor are mostly Giant Silk Moths - Lunas, Polyphemus and Cecropias. I'd love to see other people's set ups.  I'm outgrowing my space, and I'd like to get some other ideas.

Marcie

In looking at information about Giant Swallowtails in Wisconsin, no one seems to be sure whether they overwinter this far north, or repopulate this area from farther south each spring.

These are the dates of my first Giant Swallowtail sightings for 3 of the last 4 years.

2005 – August 10

2006 – May 29

2008 – May 23

It would be interesting to know if these were immigrants, or newly hatched butterflies from nearby.

This is a link to someone’s account of a Giant Swallowtail chrysalis surviving the winter in northern Illinois – so it seems that they do overwinter there.

Giant Swallowtails, like other swallowtails, spend the winter as a pupa (chrysalis). I watched a female lay an egg a few days ago, and thought it would be interesting to raise it and see if it survives the winter. I spent this morning checking out Prickly Ash bushes, and I found 4 more eggs and 7 early instar caterpillars.

I’ll try raising them all and see what happens.

I raise my caterpillars on our porch, which is protected from snow and rain, but not from winter temperatures. Since the pupae need moisture, I usually spray them with water when it rains, or throw some snow on them every week or so all winter.

I just read about someone who has raised Giant Swallowtails, and she says the caterpillars sometimes eat each other if they’re kept together. I usually raise caterpillars in large screened cages, so I’m going to have to adapt my system a little to keep the caterpillars separate.

To start with, I’ve done it like this.

Each caterpillar is on a branch of Prickly Ash, stuck into a florist tube, and stuck in the side of one of my large screened cages.

I’m hoping that they’ll stay on their own branches for now - they're very small and don't seem to move around much. As they get bigger, I’ll figure out a new system.

Here’s an egg.

A first instar caterpillar – it’s about 5 mm long.

I think this is a second instar caterpillar. It’s longer – 12 mm – its skin has gotten shiny, it’s lost its hairs, and its head is wider.

Marcie

A month or so ago, Ian gave me the chrysalis of what he thought was a Viceroy.

This is the chrysalis.

About a week later it hatched into a Red-spotted Purple.

A few days after that I watched a Red-spotted Purple lay an egg on the tip of a Willow leaf. They lay their eggs right at the very tip of the leaf, on the top of the leaf.

This is the egg on the leaf.

This is the egg looking through a microscope.

I looked around and found 3 more eggs - they all looked exactly the same, and were on the tips of willow leaves. I collected all four, and put them in a cage. Only one caterpillar hatched - or I missed seeing the others. But one caterpillar happily ate willow leaves, and grew and eventually made a chrysalis.

Here's the caterpillar at various stages.

Here's the chrysalis.

And here it is after it hatched - a Viceroy!

My conclusion from all this is that it's difficult to tell the two butterflies apart as eggs or chrysalises. The caterpillars of both will eat willow, and they lay their eggs in the same place on the leaf.

James Scott's book says that the chrysalises are similar except that the bump on the Red-spotted Purple chrysalis is less angled that the one on the Viceroy chrysalis. My two chrysalises confirm this difference. I'd like to raise both kinds of caterpillars sometime, so I could learn the differences between them.

Marcie

I found a Giant Swallowtail caterpillar on a Prickly Ash shrub several weeks ago. It was huge and nearly ready to make a chrysalis.

It made a chrysalis on July 22nd.

On August 11th the butterfly finally emerged.

I raised a Giant Swallowtail once before - several years ago - from an egg, so I have a few old photos of earlier instars.

This is probably a first instar:

This is a later instar - with its red osmeterium. I must have startled it when I took the photo.

We see many Giant Swallowtails on our land in Buffalo County, WI. I don't think they survive our winters - I think they repopulate from farther south every summer. The earliest I've seen one here was this summer - on May 23rd.

Here's one nectaring on Swamp Milkweed.

And here's a comparison shot - a Tiger Swallowtail and a Giant Swallowtail side-by-side.

In the summer they are one of the most common butterflies we see on our driveway.

Marcie