My first Butterfly egg laying picture of 2010. This is a Polydamas Swallowtail. She’s laying eggs on our Giant Dutchman’s Pipevine. You can see the cluster of golden eggs on the stem of the Pipevine.
Butterfly And Wildlife Gardening And Photography
Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
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Category Archives: PolydamasI thought I would put together some brief videos on how to create a successful Butterfly Garden for my last day of vacation. There are a total of 5 videos, each one is less than 2 minutes long. Watching these should give you a decent idea of how to start (or continue) a successful Butterfly…  After the dreary, rainy day we had yesterday, it was a welcome sight to have nothing but sunshine and blue skies today. The beautiful weather also brought out all the Butterflies. It also brought out the “territorialness” in all the male Butterflies. Probably the most aggressive was this male Monarch pictured below. He would rest…  It’s been raining here since yesterday afternoon. Finally at about 3 the sun came out and the rain disappeared. That also brought out lots of Butterflies. They’ve probably been sheltering under leaves for quite a while. Just in five minutes I was able to count 5 Gulf Fritillary, 4 Monarchs, 1 Pipevine, 1 Polydamas, and…  I mentioned in an earlier post how we are starting to see an increase in the number of Butterflies. That is especially true of the Polydamas Swallowtail. All told, we have close to 100 Caterpillars that we are raising inside, and who knows how many are still in the backyard. Truth is, the Polydamas are… This afternoon was just crazy in terms of Butterflies. It rained (finally) most of the morning here in Houston. Then, for just a brief moment we had some sunshine. That brief change in weather really brought out the Butterflies. There were Monarchs, Polydamas Swallowtails, Giant Swallowtails, and all kinds of Skippers. I’m guessing that because… I say triplets, but in reality we had 7 Polydamas hatch today, but 4 of them flew off as soon as I released them. The remaining 3 I placed on the new plant I bought from Joshua’s Native Plants (Hummingbird Bush). The first shot is of the “triplets.” Here’s a shot with the wings spread… During the first day we had 10 hatch, yesterday about 5, and just 1 today. They all are apparently staying local as they have gone straight to the Pipevine and began laying eggs. When they need some energy, they go over to the Butterfly Bush or Milkweed, then it’s back to laying eggs. Interesting day in the Butterfly world. I get home and immediately start mowing the yard; I don’t even walk inside. About 30 minutes later, Leecy arrives. All the sudden the back door flies open and Leecy says we have a problem. Now before I tell you what really happened, let me rehash what this has…  We had a very active Pipevine Swallowtail laying eggs today. As I was watching this Butterfly lay her eggs, I started to get confused about the differences between Polydamas, Pipevine, and Eastern Black Swallowtails. Here are some of the differences and similarities. Polydamas Swallowtails don’t have the “tails” like Eastern Black and Pipevine Swallowtails Pipevine… These Polydamas Swallowtails are becoming semi-regular around here lately. I saw at least two at the same time flying around. One of them (in the pictures below (was trying all day to unload some eggs). I even saw her after dusk and she was just hanging on the Pipevine with tons of eggs still trying… Here’s something you won’t see on many Butterfly sites. It’s a Polydamas Swallowtail video showing the caterpillar moving to the Chrysalis stage. I’ve watched about 5 of these occur over the last two days and it’s absolutely fascinating (at least to me)! The entire process takes about 10 minutes and these critters appear to use… Okay maybe someone can explain this to me because I honestly don’t know. Most of our Polydamas caterpillars are a dark, maroon color. However, we have a couple that are very light colored. Are these albino, male/female? I’ve never seen anything documented suggesting what the two different colors represent. Comparison side by side  Occasionally during the move from the Caterpillar to the Chrysalis stage the Chrysalis breaks its webbing that it was attached to. Fortunately, Leecy takes a bit of dental floss and strings them back up. Below was a newly formed Polydamas Chrsyalis that detached from its webbing. If you click on the picture you can really… I thought I would share some pictures of our Polydamas Swallowtail “Nursery.” Here’s a shot taken a bit further away. You can see two Polydamas caterpillars who will probably move to the Chrsyalis stage either tonight or tomorrow (you have to click on the picture for the full size photo that shows both of them). |
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