The past few days, I've been collecting American painted lady eggs off of everlastings that are growing wild in our lawn. You can enlarge the image to see the little green eggs on these leaves.
Not once have I seen these butterflies flitting about, but obviously they are around! Soon these will hatch, grow, pupate, and emerge, and we will have more of these beautiful orange butterflies to enjoy!
A photo of an adult American Painted lady can be seen here: http://lezasleps.blogspot.com/2007/09/some-vanessa-butterflies.html
--LKR
Not once have I seen these butterflies flitting about, but obviously they are around! Soon these will hatch, grow, pupate, and emerge, and we will have more of these beautiful orange butterflies to enjoy!
A photo of an adult American Painted lady can be seen here: http://lezasleps.blogspot.com/2007/09/some-vanessa-butterflies.html
--LKR
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7 comments:
Wow! How do yo even find these eggs? They are so tiny and look like a part of the leaf!
Knowing it was a host plant for the Painted Lady, I'd look for eggs. I remember thinking in the beginning that it was probably only wishful thinking that some might be eggs, but then they'd hatch, and it was really cool!!! Some don't look like eggs at all.
These butterflies can be a little trickier to raise 'cuz they hide in shelters--which are also their food--that dry up quickly. More so with Red Admirals that also "sew" stinging nettle leaves together.
Both of these butterflies also are more prone to parasites which can really be disappointing. If you find a small cocoon within the leaf shelter when the larvae are in around the 2nd instar and still really small(I find them when I'm cleaning out the boxes we rear them in), it's a parasite. I usually flush them down the commode. Parasites had laid an egg in a butterfly's egg.
Another really gross parasite that plagues them is at the 4th or 5th instar, shortly before they are to pupate. The caterpillar suddenly behaves uncharacteristically, and stops eating, and acts really "strange". In a day or two you'll see gross little worms coming out of their body, which produce a foamy froth over part of the dying caterpillar where they emerged. I call it "the invasion of the body snatchers". It's *so* gross and *so* sad!
Another caterpillar that is frequently parasitized are the beautiful Fritillary caterpillars. They overwinter in loose soil and under leaf litter next to violets which are their host plants. Some of their parasites are large, ugly parasitic wasps that emerge out of the chrysalis!!! Talk about disappointing!!! Instead of a beautiful butterfly, you get a, ugly, mean-looking wasp!!!
* An instar is the period between molts.
* Larvae=caterpillars
* Pupa=chrysalis
This is so interesting! How do you know so much about butterflies? Are you a biologist? And how long have you been raising--or is it rearing--butterflies?
I've always loved to research stuff as well as to observe things in nature, so that is how I got my lepidopterology degree, which later landed me with a *wonderful* job at a nature center teaching others about local butterflies! :-)
Ever since I was little, I was fascinated by nature. After several caterpillars died when I'd throw leaves and grass in their "cages" and they wouldn't eat..., I vowed never to bring in another caterpillar 'til I knew what I was doing, no matter *how* tempting it was.
Sooo, *many* years later, after watching female Eastern Black swallowtail butterflies laying eggs on our fennel and parsley I had planted mainly for them, and after several years of watching them in different stages of their life cycle only to "disappear* (got eaten--we had a bird feeder very near to our garden!!!)..., I started to bring them into our house to raise them. We started rearing them regularly in our home 13 years ago. Our oldest daughter was two, and our son was only a few months old.
A few years later after our youngest daughter, who is very hands on, was born, she would just *vanish*. If she wasn't playing by herself in her room, or with her siblings, I'd *always* find her out on our front porch very carefully mingling with the butterflies that had just emerged!!!
All three kids still *love* releasing them, and we've enjoyed sharing that pleasure with our neighbors, friends, and family.
It was really cute--my youngest was three years old and was watching me tag Monarchs for Monarch Watch. Suddenly, I noticed a tag missing out of order. I turned in enough time to witness my daughter tag a butterfly "perfectly"!!!
You are so lucky! Thanks so much for answering my questions! You should write a book!
Thanks! I do hope so, one of these days... ! :-)
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