Tag Archives: butterfly house

Back with a vengeance

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The butterflies are loving the warm Southwest Florida weather again. We had some cold spells this winter, and the daily butterfly visits came to a stop for the most part. 

I am delighted to say that the gulf fritillary butterfly has come back with a vengeance.

The caterpillar population has exploded these past few weeks. The upside to this, the maypop passionvine continues to pop up everywhere in and outside of the garden giving the caterpillars plenty to eat as they grow through their multiple instars. 

I decided to put some caterpillars in our butterfly house, a move made after cleaning up the garden and moving the plant out of harms way in the actual yard.

There are quite a few chrysalis in the butterfly house currently. 

Yesterday the first butterfly emerged.

And the number continues to hike

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The polydamas swallowtail butterflies continue to have a record year in our butterfly house. In 11 days, 81 have emerged, and that’s just in our butterfly house. I have found numerous empty chrysalis scattered throughout the garden.

Although the host plants are slowly growing back, the Dutchman pipe and birthwort, it is not stopping them from flying through the garden every day finding nectar sources.

Up to 50

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am in awe with this butterfly, the polydamas swallowtail. In eight days, I have had 50 butterflies emerge, 20 today alone. I still have more chrysalsis to emerge!

There is truly nothing more special than having a butterfly sit on your hand before it decides to fly away, or juat hangs out with yiu for a while. They are spectacular.

They continue to emerge

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Every day since late last week I have had polydamas swallowtail butterflies emerge from their chrysalsis in our butterfly house.

Yesterday I had 9 emerge and today I had 7 for a total of 187 all time raised and released, with 19 in six days. The wonderful part, there are more yet to show their beauty!

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/