Monthly Archives: July 2023

Still beautiful

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A polydamas swallowtail butterfly found refuge in the garden this morning. I found it on the ground, battered wings expanded, so I let it crawl on my finger and brought it to a nectar plant, the red penta. As soon as it crawled on my finger its proboscis was extended waiting to get to that sweet goodness. Before all of its feet were on the penta it was already sipping away with its wings flapping extremely fast.

This morning we had three very eager polydamas swallowtail butterflies emerge in our butterfly house. They were not interested in any photographs, but boy were they beautiful.

There will soon be many more polydamas swallowtails in the garden, as more caterpillars are growing and getting closer to their ideal length. These caterpillars are chomping away on the Aristolochia trilobata in the front garden. The first time I have had caterpillars on this plant since I planted it more than two years ago. The Dutchman’s pipe in the back garden is constantly crawling with polydamas caterpillars.

For more information, visit https://sweetbutterflybliss.com/polydamas-swallowtail-butterfly

A pair

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A stroll through the garden this morning was pretty amazing. There were gulf fritillary butterflies fluttering about everywhere, laying eggs, resting, sipping on nectar, and this lovely mating pair.

When the male chooses his female he will do this very intriguing “wing clap” display right over the female. If the male captures the female’s attention, they will join together at their abdomens, providing the male with the opportunity to pass sperm to the female, according to the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment.

The gulf fritillary butterflies lifespan can range from 14 to 27 days.

Check out my gulf fritillary butterfly page for more information, photographs of the life cycle. https://sweetbutterflybliss.com/gulf-fritillary/

Cassius blue

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The cassius blue, Leptotes cassius, or sometimes referred to as the striped blue, can be found throughout peninsular Florida, especially along the coast.

This butterfly is super tiny, with only a 3/4-15/16 inch wing span. There are two eyespots on the margin of the hind wing. The males are pale to bright blue above, while the females have a bluish-white to white above the basal area of the wing, as well as broad dark borders.

The larvae are also small, as it is approximately only .5 inches in length and are green with faint dark markings, or a patterned white faint marking. Among the host plants are the plumbago, which I have plenty of in the garden.

The littles

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These butterflies are constantly flying around the yard, most of the time landing on “weed” flowers in the yard. Today this little sulphur was in the garden and remained still for quite some time before flying away.