The gulf fritillary courtship dance.
The male performs a wing clap, often times catching the female’s antenna in the clap. Research shows that the wing clapping occurs, so the male can present his chemical signals to the female.
The dance
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Monthly Archives: August 2022
Another couple
Another monarch couple was found mating in the garden yesterday, a process I have read can take up to 16 hours. The male will use his claspers, located at the end of its abdomen, to attach to the females ostium bursa.
During the mating the male will transfer spermatophore, which includes sperm and nutrients for the female to produce eggs. The female will store the sperm in her bursa sac until she lays eggs on a milkweed leaf. The sperm is fertilized as she lays eggs.
Then the stages begin, the egg, larvae, or caterpillar, pupa, or chrysalis, and then the butterfly. It will take anywhere from three to five days for an egg to hatch. The caterpillar will chew a small hole in the egg and wriggle free. Once out of the egg, the caterpillar will consume the remaining part of the egg before moving onto the nutrients of the milkweed leaf. The caterpillar will cut the leaves near the base of the milkweed blade to drain out the latex before eating. The caterpillar will molt four times before its last molt of creating a chrysalis.
A favorite
The gulf fritillary is definitely a favorite with its bright orange coloring. One of its distinct markings is the three white dots encircled by black. The adult’s lifespan can range anywhere from two weeks to 27 days.
Although the male and female are similiar, the female differs as she is a little larger, has heavier black markings and has blunter wings, opposed to the males elongated wings.
More colors
The zinnias are starting to produce more flowers, and today a new color, yellow. They come in hues of orange, pink, purple, red, white and yellow. They are fast growers and bloom heavily, but are annuals, so the original plant will not come back the following year.
There are the single, semi-double and double zinnia, which differ in the number of rows and petals the flower produces. These flowers also come in the beehive, button and cactus forms of flowers, as well as in different heights.
They love soaking up full sun, preferred six to eight hours, which promotes more blooms. Also, deadheading, getting rid of the dead flowers, encourages more growth.
Brand new
A zebra longwing, the Florida state butterfly, hatched this morning. It was hidden within the maypop passion vine.
The males will mate with a female before it emerges from its chrysalis, which resembles a dead leaf. Once the male determines it is a female, it will perch on the chrysalis and fend off other males by opening its wings. The mating can go on for several hours, with the female emerging and expanding her wings. I am assuming this butterfly is a male, as there were no other zebra longwings nearby today, or the last few days.
More photographs of this can be found at https://bit.ly/3dWN7q7.