The gulf fritillary is such an amazing butterfly to watch in action, especially as they do not scare easily when you get close. The best part is if you stay still they flutter right past you, almost touching you, as they gracefully land on the nectar of choice.
The caterpillars are of abundance on the ever growing maypop passionvine. The butterflies are busy laying eggs on the vine, and for some reason on the wire that the maypop vine threw, as well as a trellis.
Today they went from the red pentas, which are among the top two nectar plants this butterfly visits in my garden, to laying eggs.
The gulf fritillary’s life span is anywhere from 14 to 27 days.
The blue porterweed and maypop passionvine are a must for the gulf fritillary butterflies. At least, in my garden they are favored by this beauty.
These two plants are growing in abundance in both my front and back butterfly garden, which sees a great deal of action from the gulf fritillary butterflies as soon as the 8 o’clock hour throughout the day until around 7 p.m.
This one photographed below laid eggs on the maypop passionvine and then visited the blue porterweed directly next to it to sip some nectar before the process began all over again.
We have taken a break from raising monarch caterpillars for the last few months until my husband spotted a caterpillar crawling up our lanai screen looking for a place to make its chrysalis. I put the caterpillar in our butterfly house and it instantly found a branch to make its J and create its green chrysalis. Yesterday a beautiful male monarch successfully emerged and was released in our garden.
He chose a zinnia to rest on and then a red sage before taking a longer flight out of the garden.
This beauty marks No. 429 that we have raised and released.
The monarch butterfly’s scientific name is Danaus Plexippus, which means “sleepy transformation” in Greek. The male has two black spots in the center of its lower wings and are larger in size than the female. According to the National Wildlife Federation, the spots are scent glands, which help the males attract females.
This morning, as I was sitting in the living room looking out the window a monarch butterfly caught my attention as it glided from one plant to another. So, like any other day, I grabbed my camera and headed for the front garden.
This female absolutely loved the nectar from my red penta plant. She sipped to her heart’s content, before flying to the giant milkweed, laid an egg and then went back for some more nutrition. She was not bothered by me at all, as I snapped close to 50 photographs.
Did you know there are two different populations of monarch butterflies? The south Florida population breeds year round without migrating, while the other population is a larger eastern butterfly, which does migrate. An absolute perk of living in Southwest Florida, the ability to see these gorgeous butterflies flutter throughout the garden with the perfect gliding flight. In southern Florida, they breed all year.
The monarch can be found in all states except Alaska.
I find it interesting that the caterpillars will often cut, or eat the leaves near the base of the leaf’s blade in order to drain out the latex before eating. I read that the monarch will lay their eggs on the most toxic of the milkweed species, giving their offspring a chance at making it through its lifecycle.
Here are quite a few photographs from this morning of the monarch butterfly.
Today we had 15 more great southern white butterflies emerge in our butterfly house. They had to remain in the house for quite some time as we had a pretty bad storm this morning and the wind was crazy strong. Some of them were super eager to fly away, while others allowed us to bring them to some nectar flowers in our front garden. My daughter was ecstatic that some stayed with her for a while. So special when she talks to them and names them. The passion will continue to another generation.
We had lots of females and males. The females are darker in color and have black cell spots on their forewing, while the males are mostly white.
The best part is we have so many great southern white butterflies flying around all of our gardens. It’s absolutely stunning to spot the white when the males are flying, as well as the darker shades, while the females are fluttering by.
