Butterfly And Wildlife Gardening And Photography» Polydamas

Polydamas Swallowtail Laying Eggs On Pipevine

texdr — Sun, 02 May 2010 02:19:57 +0000

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.

Polydamas Swallowtail Laying Eggs On Pipevine 2010

How To Build A Successful Butterfly Garden Videos

texdr — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:07:23 +0000

I 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 Garden.

In this first video, I talk about how to buy Milkweed, what prices you should expect to pay (at least in Houston), how to tell if you have healthy Milkweed, and how to plant your Milkweed plants.

In this second video clip, I talk about the importance of having Nectar plants for your Butterfly Garden. I also show a brief clip of my Butterfly Enclosures.

By the way, some good nectar plants I recommend are Penta, Salvia, Purple Coneflower, Lantana, Butterfly Bush, and the Cigar Bush.

In this third video clip, I talk about some other Host Plants for your Butterfly Garden including, Pipevine, Fennel, and Citrus Trees.

In the fourth video clip, I talk about some additional Host Plants for Butterflies including Spicebush and Passion Vine, as well as what kinds of Butterflies you can expect to attract with the different Host Plants.

In this fifth and final video clip I talk about some additional Butterfly Gardening tools such as portable Butterfly Enclosures and long tweezers.

If you have any questions about these videos, where to buy plants or the additional Butterfly Gardening tools, just send me an email or leave a comment.

Hope you enjoy and it makes sense!

Butterfly Brawl

texdr — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:26:52 +0000

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 right above one section of Milkweed and as soon as another Butterfly (Gulf Fritillary, Cloudless Sulphur, Polydamas Swallowtail) would come flying by he would chase them off. When a female Monarch happened to fly by, he would try and mate with her. I’m not sure he ever succeeded on that part (he would chase her, but I never saw them mating).

Male Monarch Patrolling Territory

This Gulf Fritillary was also chasing females. In the picture below, he was resting on the plant that was next to the Passion Vine. Although I didn’t get any pictures of them today, we also have lots of Fritillary caterpillars right now.

Gulf Fritillary Warming Wings

Butterflies After The Rain

texdr — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:51:40 +0000

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 1 Cloudless Sulphur. All of the Fritillaries were focused on laying eggs.

I didn’t see any Eastern Black Swallowtails flying, but we do have lots of Chrysalis and Caterpillars.

Speaking of Butterflies, Leecy tells me we have about 115 Polydamas Chrysalises.

Gulf Fritillary Laying Eggs

Lots Of Polydamas Babies

texdr — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:49:28 +0000

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 becoming so prevalent right now and we don’t have much more space inside to raise them.

Also, the majority of wasps seem to have disappeared (anyone else notice this?), so all these Caterpillars should be relatively safe staying outside in the wild.

In this shot below, the Caterpillars really are attracted to this wire that we put inside the cage. If I’m not mistaken, there’s about 16 just on this wire. There’s lots more inside the actual cage.

Polydamas Caterpillars On Screen

In this shot, it shows 3 of the Caterpillars who have not turned into Chrysalis all lined up. By tomorrow morning, they will become Chrysalises as well.

Polydamas Three In A Row

Polydamas Butterfly On Hummingbird Feeder

texdr — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:01:38 +0000

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 it was raining so much this morning, the Butterflies didn’t have a chance to feed earlier in the day so as soon as the sun came out it was time to feast.

This is a picture of a Polydamas Swallowtail feeding on the Hummingbird feeder.

Polydamas Butterfly On Hummingbird Feeder

Here’s that same Polydamas later feeding on a Penta.

Polydamas Feeding On Penta

Polydamas Triplets

texdr — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:49:42 +0000

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.”

Three Polydamas

Here’s a shot with the wings spread out.

Polydamas Wings Spread

This last shot I took with my Macro lens. If you click on the picture to view it full size, you’ll see that these Butterflies are rather hairy and have very long tongues (proboscis).

Polydamas Up Close

Update On Polydamas Hatchings

texdr — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:22:01 +0000

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.

Poydamas On Butterfly Bush

Ten Polydamas Hatched Today

texdr — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:52:45 +0000

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 meant in the past.

Cat threw up
Dog threw up
Leecy got bit by Coco (the bird)
Sascha ate a paper towel
The dogs collided giving Sascha a concussion and Maggie a couple of broken molars
Ants got in the Cat food
Fish died
Lizard committed suicide by jumping in the Turtle tank (don’t ask..well you can, and I’ll explain if you really want to know)

So, where was I? Oh yes, Leecy saying we had a problem. The problem (today) was that Chloe (her cat) apparently saw the Polydamas hatching today and decided to play with the Butterfly enclosure. The end result, 9 flapping Polydamas Butterflies on the floor. Fortunately, none were hurt.

In case you didn’t catch it, I did say 9 flapping Butterflies instead of 10. The reason being was because one of them got stuck and never completely hatched (and died).

Here’s a shot of one of the newborns.

Polydamas On Hand

Polydamas Vs Pipevine Vs Eastern Black Swallowtail Eggs

texdr — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:05:35 +0000

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 eggs are brown, rust colored whereas Polydamas eggs are yellow (see pictures below). Both lay their eggs on Pipevine
Pipevine Swallowtails have one row of orange dots when their wings are closed, whereas Eastern Black Swallowtails have two rows

Pipevine Swallowtail Laying Eggs

Pipevine Swallowtail Eggs

Polydamas Swallowtail Eggs

Old Faithful

texdr — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:07:14 +0000

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 to be released. Actually I think that’s not good news. I’m wondering if those eggs have somehow become stuck on here. If she’s around tomorrow and I can catch her, I’ll probably do so in that I can hopefully help her release some of those eggs. Right now she look awful constipated or whatever they call it when you have a ton of eggs in your belly and they won’t come out.

Old Faithful

Polydamas Stuck With Eggs

Polydamas Video. A First!

texdr — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:35:13 +0000

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 an amazing amount of energy going through this transformation.

This is my first video and I haven’t used my video camera forever and I also was filming through the Butterfly enclosure..so the quality is not that great but you can still make out what is happening.

I promise the next videos will be better!

Also, if you don’t mind, let me know what you think of this video in the comments section (ie., great addition, it sucks, couldn’t view it, page took too long to load, etc).

P.S. There is no sound in this video (I removed it on purpose since it wasn’t pertinent).

Freak Of Nature?

texdr — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:34:12 +0000

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.

Albino Polydamas?

Comparison side by side

Polydamas Caterpillars Light And Dark

Rescued Polydamas Chrysalis

texdr — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:30:16 +0000

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 see lots of detail

Polydamas Chrysalis

Polydamas Chrysalis after being rescued by Leecy with a bit of dental floss.

Rescued Polydamas Chrysalis

Polydamas Swallowtail Nursery

texdr — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:27:08 +0000

I thought I would share some pictures of our Polydamas Swallowtail “Nursery.”

Collection Of Polydamas Chrysalis

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).

Polydamas Nursery