Category Archives: butterfly house

Finally in the right place

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I have always wondered how a polydamas swallowtail has made its chrysalsis. I have read about the transformation, have seen the first step and the last step, but never the in-between until last night.

When the caterpillar is ready to enter its next stage it attaches a silk pad with its terminal prolegs, so it can hang from a silk girdle.

After the sun had gone down, the caterpillars started to do their dance as I was walking past the butterfly house. Another perk of having a butterfly garden, my husband’s beautiful creation of a butterfly house that has allowed countless viewings of the lifecycle.

I was so excited to witness the polydamas swallowtail make its chrysalis that I ran and grabbed my phone to record the incredible transformation.

It took more than 5 minutes for the caterpillar to complete the transformation. Check out the link below for the complete video on my Facebook page and be sure to follow for additional photographs and videos from the garden.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Bx1Vx5Tv8/

Unique

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The polydamas swallowtail caterpillar that I found yesterday is now in its chrysalis today.

My food source for them is almost gone and there are probably another two dozen if not more caterpillars in the garden. There’s probably a dozen in the butterfly house that I found roaming around the garden, crawling on the house, or walking down our pathway.

Butterlfies appear  . . .

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Butterflies appear when angels are near.

It never fails there is always a butterfly that emerges on a big day for my daughter. Today we had two.

Nature at its finest.

We had two butterflies emerge today, an orange barred sulphur (81) and a monarch butterfly (639). 

Fly free . . .

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We have had a great amount of rain yesterday and today and my garden is looking beautiful!

I had four butterflies emerge this morning in iur butterfly house, 3 monarch butterflies (now totaling 637 released) and one orange barred sulphur butterfly (now totaling 80 released).

The clouds finally parted, the rain stopped, and three of the four have been released.

Hidden well

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The polydamas swallowtail chrysalis, I think, is very unique. The color often times depends on where they create it, as they can either be green, or brown.

The first one is well hidden in my Bahama cassia tree, resembling the color of a leaf. The last few photos are residing  in my butterfly house and are brown, similar to the color of the branch.

It will be interesting to see how long before the butterflies emerge. The last batch overwintered, which was fascinating because I live in Southwest Florida where the temps usually do not turn too extreme.