Category Archives: Gulf fritillary butterfly

The orange caterpillar

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The gulf fritillary caterpillar will spend up to 16 days eating its host plant (corkystem passionvine), molting, shedding its skin, as it grows larger and larger.

The caterpillars also take in toxins from the passionflower, which are stored and kept in their bodies through turning into a butterfly, according to the Alabama Wildlife Federation.

I am beginning to see a lot more gulf fritillary butterflies flutter about the gardens. I was excited to see a rather large caterpillar resting in the garden near its host plant.

In love

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The gulf fritillary, such a stunning butterfly! At any given time we have at least six fluttering about the garden.

These two recently emerged in our butterfly house the last few days. The first photo rested on our butterfly bench for a while. The contrast of the gulf fritillary and the bench, to me, is stunning.

I have found that the zinnia flower is another favorite of the gulf fritillary. They always feed off the red penta and blue porterweed, so I was excited to see I found another nectar plant they enjoy. I just planted more than a dozen zinnia seeds with the seeds already sprouting in the garden.

The love extends

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I love that I have extended my passion for butterflies and their lifecycle with others!

When you walk to my front door you often times have to watch your step up the path, as caterpillars are on the move, sometimes crossing that path to find a place to make their chrysalis on my home. Sometimes they create a chrysalis around the window giving us perfect view of when they emerge.

My good friend found a gulf fritillary caterpillar crawling up the ledge near my front door, and she like my daughter and I, had to save and put into our butterfly house where it instantly made its chrysalis. Yesterday the beauty emerged and flew free into our garden.

This one marks 84!

I see you

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It has been fascinating to watch how butterflies have dealt with Hurricane Idalia’s outer bands of rain and wind in my garden.

The polydamas swallowtail, gulf fritilary, monarch and orange-barred sulphurs have been constant throughout this storm. Every break in rain they fight the 20+ mile per hour winds and either lay eggs, or drink some nectar.

On the last walk outside, I found a gulf fritillary hiding deep in the vegetation of a zinnia plant. They definitely know where to hide and ride out the storm.

Time for laying eggs

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There have been many breaks in the outer bands of rains from Hurricane Idalia inviting the butterflies back into the garden. It makes me wonder where they find cover during the rain, as it must be somewhere close because there are quite a few taking advantage of the no rain, overcast skies right now.

This gulf fritillary took the opportunity to lay some eggs on our maypop passionvine. If you look closely, there are already eggs on the leaf. This beautiful lush plant will disappear rather quickly with the action this particular plant has received recently.