The cloudless sulphur butterfly returned to the garden this afternoon, leaving behind quite a few eggs (white on the side of the leaf) on our cassia tree.
Most of the time she is incredibly hard to photograph, as she does not stay long while laying eggs.
Although the adult sulphur’s are typically a vibrant shade of yellow, the female can be pale yellow or white during the summer months. During the winter months males sometimes have darker markings ventrally.
We brought home a new plant from the last native plant sale we attended, another member of the cassia family.
Days after planting it into the ground I spotted a cloudless sulphur caterpillar.
I waited for the caterpillar to grow a little more before welcoming it into the butterfly house as our latest resident. I thought for sure it was very close to the last instar, but it is still munching away on fresh leaves almost every day. I have read they grow up to 1.8 inches.
A neat characteristic of this caterpillar is the coloration, as it turns green, or yellow depending on the green leaves, or yellow flowers it eats. My cassia does not have any flowers yet, as they are both very young trees.
For more information, photographs, about the cloudless sulphur, visit https://bit.ly/3vJIMNd.
The cloudless sulphur is such an incredible brilliant hue of yellow. The best move we made was adding a cassia tree to our butterfly garden, as this butterfly always catches my eye when fluttering into the garden. This beautiful female spent a great deal of time in the garden this morning laying as many eggs as she could.
Although hard to tell, the female has a black border on her wings. She also has a dark spot on the center of the forewing. The male, on the other hand, is solid yellow.
These butterflies are attracted to red flowers. Unfortunately, with being so strongly attracted to red, they have also been known to fly into the red of car taillights.
The cloudless sulphur, although can be found throughout most of the United States, will travel to the southern United States, including Florida, during the fall, where they winter. When temperatures warm, they will travel north to the same breeding sites they visited the year before.
A stroll through the garden this morning revealed five cloudless sulphur caterpillars on our cassia tree.
These caterpillars do a wonderful job of camouflaging themselves. These caterpillars turn into a brilliant yellow butterfly, which have become a welcome visitor to our garden.
I found another cloudless sulphur caterpillar resting on our cassia tree.
The two caterpillars below are residents of our butterfly house. Another caterpillar that changes with its appearance as it goes through its various instars.
The cloudless sulphur life cycle: https://bit.ly/3ydfSXv
