I saw a few Painted Lady Butterflies today, and they were all focusing on the Zinnias.

These Butterflies are not easy to take pictures of.  They tend to be very jittery and skittish.  Since it is cooler and I’m not sweating like a pig, I can afford to sit still for a little bit allowing the Butterflies to relax and focus on getting nectar from the Zinnias.

Painted Lady Butterfly On Peach Zinnia

Painted Lady Butterfly On Yellow Zinnia With Dark Background

One day while Leecy and I were investigating the property looking for Deer horns (Leecy just corrected me, they’re called antlers.  Obviously I’m not a hunter), Leecy spotted these 2 Pipevine Caterpillars on these dry blades of grass.  This was a little unexpected because we didn’t see any Pipevine plants in the field, but there were lots and lots of Pipevine Butterflies flying around (probably the most prevalent Butterfly we saw).

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars Found At Country Inn And Cottages

On Wednesday I had a little work to do (I know, I’m supposed to be on vacation) so while Leecy went horseback riding (more on that in another post), and I had a little time to kill, I decided to roam the 200 or so acres around the Cottages looking for Butterflies.  Overall the Wildflowers are pretty limited anywhere in the Texas Hill Country, but I did find a little place out in the field that had some yellow Wildflowers growing.  That turned out to be the best place to find a variety of Butterflies.

There were Painted Lady Butterflies,

Painted Lady Butterfly Found At Country Inn And Cottages

Variegated Fritillary Butterflies,

Variegated Fritillary Butterfly Found At Country Inn And Cottages

Queen Butterflies,

Queen Butterfly Found At Country Inn And Cottages

and many other smaller Butterflies that I wasn’t quick (or patient) enough to get pictures of.

One of the most unusual Butterflies (for me) I saw was a Goatweed Leafwing Butterfly.  You may not be able to see this from the web, but if you look on that blade of grass (or Goatweed I guess) towards the bottom, you will see a small Caterpillar.  Obviously I didn’t notice this until I got back to the Cottage to examine the pictures.  This is not a Butterfly I would expect to see in my backyard.

Goatweed Leafwing Butterfly With Caterpillar

We also saw some Monarch Butterflies and I wish I would have brought my Milkweed book as I’m sure there were varieties of Milkweed out in these fields that I’m just not accustomed to seeing.

The Butterfly Bush had some appeal where we actually had two different Painted Ladies.  One particular Butterfly positioned itself in a perfect position against the blue sky.

Painted Lady On Pink Butterfly Bush

Painted Lady On Pink Butterfly Bush Blue Sky

Painted Lady Getting Nectar On Pink Butterfly Bush

I saw a total of 4 Monarchs and 1 Painted Lady today.  Three of the Monarchs were ones that we had already tagged.  I can’t imagine that these Monarchs would still make it to Mexico, but there’s always hope.  If nothing else, they’ve got plenty of Nectar plants right here, and if it gets too cold, we’ll probably bring them inside for the night.

Painted Lady On Salvia Leucantha

Painted Lady Getting Nectar On Salvia Leucantha

Male Monarch On Milkweed On Chilly Day

Notice the Spotted Cucumber Beetle next to the Monarch below?

Spotted Cucumber Beetle Feeding With Male Monarch

In the picture below, we had to re-tag this Monarch because the sticker was placed too high.  You can see the outline of where the old tag was placed.

Retagged Monarch On Bamboo

Male Monarch With Wings Spread

Here’s something else that’s interesting.  Take a look at this photo showing the Monarch Chrysalises.  Don’t they look a little strange?  To me it looks as though the Chrysalises are deformed.  Maybe that’s because of living in microgravity (or even better, maybe someone associated with this research can comment).

Another question I have for anyone who may know the answer.  In this experiment, did they not plan on providing any food source for these Butterflies (correction, apparently they did have a nectar source according to this article)?  Have they ever tried to grow Milkweed in space?  I think it would have been an interesting experiment to have these Monarchs emerge from their Chrysalises, float over to a Milkweed plant that perhaps was growing well under artificial light, sip on some nectar from the plant (or the Gatorade as it turns out (see article above), then lay a few hundred eggs, then repeat the cycle.

And yet one more question that comes to mind.  If Monarch’s use their antennae as a sort of GPS for their migration, what happens when they are in space?  I’m not sure if sunlight even is available (viewable through a window or something?) on the Space Station, but it might make for an interesting experiment at some point.  If the Monarchs could somehow have a view of the Sun, would they attempt to fly in some certain direction?

Then again, I’m no space scientist and for all I know to do this type of experiment in space would cost millions of dollars.  I also don’t understand gravity (or lack thereof), or how the Space Station works, so maybe my great research ideas are just a bunch of nonsense.

Anyone have any additional thoughts or comments?

I just found this link that has a brief video showing the Monarch Caterpillars.  It’s pretty interesting (if you are into Butterflies) watching these two Monarch Caterpillars fight with one another.

Did you know Butterflies live on the Space Station?  Well they don’t yet, but they will (hopefully).  On the Shuttle that launched on Monday, November 16, 2009, they took two types of Butterfly Caterpillars to be dropped off at the Space Station; Painted Lady’s and Monarchs.  NASA had previously tried to do the same experiment a year ago but the experiment ultimately failed as they didn’t develop past the larvae stage because of bad food.  Let’s hope they have better luck this time!

Even more exciting news, at least for me.  I didn’t realize this research was in part sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.  They even have some live streaming video that you can watch of the Caterpillars that is based right at Baylor College of Medicine!

You can read more details about this project by going to Discovery News.

Another little bit of interesting news regarding Monarch Butterflies.  Did you know that Female Monarchs are declining?  Me neither, but apparently they are.  In the last 30 years Female Monarchs have been declining from 53% to 43% in the overwintering site in Mexico.  The researcher hypothesized three possibilities for this trend.

1. Because of the large increase in tropical milkweed in the US, and because of how this milkweed doesn’t die in the winter, it could be that female Monarchs are migrating less and decreasing their egg production.  Thus, because more milkweed is available when it typically shouldn’t be, the female Monarchs are doing their normal evolution.
2. The second hypothesis relates to global climate change.  In this scenario, could it be that the female Monarchs aren’t migrating to Mexico because of the warmer temperatures and just staying where they are to lay their eggs?
3. The third hypothesis is that the OE (Ophryocystis Elektroscirrha) (search for Monarch Diseases on my blog) is killing the females faster than the males.

All three of these hypotheses make perfect sense to me.  Heck, we’ve got quite a few Monarch Caterpillars right now in the garden and I would think they would have already migrated in previous years.

Anyway, you can read about this particular bit of research by clicking here.

This particular Butterfly is an American Painted Lady Butterfly.  They are NOT easy to photograph.  Compared to the casual flying Monarch, these suckers act like they have ADHD.  They do not sit still for long!

First came this Painted Lady Butterfly trying to impress Brutus

Brutus Has A Visitor

Shortly after the Painted Lady Butterfly stopped by, a Fiery Skipper Butterfly also landed right next to Brutus.

Aye Aye Skipper

He still didn’t budge.