The gulf fritillary caterpillar will eat between 11 to 16 days to reach the correct size to create its chrysalis. This guy is nearing the end of the final instar.
With the maypop passion vine popping up all over the yard, outside of the garden, it has been easy to feed the caterpillars that are residing in the butterfly house. They do not discriminate against any part of the plant – once the flowers and leaves are gone, they go after the stem of the plant.
And of course, what the caterpillar turns into after emerging from its chrysalis. A gulf fritillary butterfly.
This morning I waited for a while to watch this male monarch butterfly emerge. I worked in the butterfly house, cleaning it, putting more fresh food, so I can see him emerge. Of course, I walked away and there he was. His wings were still becoming straighter as I was taking photographs.
A few hours later he was ready to be released into the garden. According to Save Our Monarchs, the butterfly should be allowed three to four hours, so they can both fully inflate and dry their wings after emerging, to be released.
This guy let me take some photos of him before he flew away. That to me is a present, a thank you, if you will, from them for giving them the safe space to go through all of its instars.
This little handsome boy sure captured my heart this afternoon. He started off on my hand, climbed to my camera, then flew to my hair before crawling onto my shirt. He then flew into a low tree branch where he hung out for a while.
This monarch beauty marks number #236 that we raised and released in our butterfly house.
I love this butterfly because of the turquoise colored antennal clubs. This butterfly was not easy to photograph at first, but then decided to hang out on a leaf closer to me.
I have read that this butterfly is sort of easy to identify the male and female. The males are whiter in color, while the female appears more of a dirty white to gray. There are also other identifiers in the forewing and ventral hindwing. The male has a black forewing apex and a ventral hindwing white-yellow appearance. The female has a black forewing apex and forewing cell spot and the ventral hindwing is gray.
The wingspan of the great southern white is 45 to 58 mm. Their flight season is year round in such areas as South Texas, peninsular Florida, as well as the Gulf Coast. They enjoy habitats in salt marshes, beaches, roadsides and disturbed areas.
According to the Florida Museum its host plant is the Virginia pepper grass, saltwort, limber caper and sea rocket. I also read that the caterpillar also hosts on plants from the mustard family. The egg is yellow and are either laid single, or in clusters. The caterpillar has a gray body with both yellow and orange longitudinal bands. The caterpillars body also has black dot tubercles with sparse long hairs. If that was not colorful enough, it also has a yellow orange head with speckled black dots.
The malachite butterfly absolutely stole the show today while visiting the Butterfly Estates in the Downtown Fort Myers River District. My friend and I were in complete awe and could not get enough of this graceful flyer with the stunning green coloring.
This is the one that my friend and I continue to talk about hours later. The one that has left us researching the host plant, so we can add it to our garden. That’s part of the great fun of creating a butterfly garden, at least for me, seeing how many species you can attract to your space. How many you can invite in, so you can admire their beauty and watch their life cycle. I believe we are up to 10 different species!
I only took 67 photos of this beauty.
According to the University of Florida, the Malachite, Siproeta stelenes, is named after the semi-precious green gemstone. Although the number of this butterfly has declined, they have been found in Lee County, an area of Southwest Florida, among a few other counties in Florida.
The eggs are green and the caterpillars are black with red markings and are horned and spiny. Its host plant is the green shrimp plant, which is also called Browne’s Blechum. The native wildflower choice, according to the University of Florida, is the Carolina wild petunia.
