Wow, it looks like she left you the mother lode there, Sherry! ;-) I think the most I ever had in a bunch was about 24. They're my very favorite caterpillar to raise. I love to put a few lengths of vine in a big storage container and watch the cats scurry along on their way to somewhere that I guess they have in mind. They always make it look like it's urgent. Ha. That's a Carolina wren for ya, building a nest in such a strange place. One year I had a pair build a nest on one of the shelves in my workshop after those little opportunists sneaked in there a few days when I had the door open and made themselves right at home. I didn't shut the door again until after the babies fledged. I have bluebird houses stacked up in our corncrib and one year the Carolina wrens made a nest in one of them even with it turned upside down. My dad had one build a nest in his fishing net one yet. Out of all of the birds that I get here, I call them the most eccentric. :) They sure are cute little things and they love the peanut butter/cornmeal/shortening mix that I put out in a log feeder for them in the winter. Cathy

Regardless which color the caterpillars are, the adults are the same. I've never had what could truly be described as a red caterpillar, but in the early instars, in the hottest part of summer, they can take on a reddish shade. From what I've read, most of the red cats are in Texas - I'm guessing the Texas heat has something to do with that. This is about as red as my cats ever get - Here's what normal (for me) cats looks like - I like this picture, because this one was giving me the "raspberry" - he/she has some reddish tones - All you can do to get pipevine swallowtail/Battus philenor caterpillars is plant some North American variety of aristolochia. In your area, a. macrophylla would probably be best. Sherry

I'm glad you're still raising cats, Dan! There are a good many moths whose caterpillars are beautiful, while the adult moths are plain brown things, roper. Some of the slug caterpillars, like the stinging rose cats, are quite beautiful - the adults aren't. Here's a picture I made several years ago of a dagger moth cat that I thought was quite fetching - The little pipevine swallowtail caterpillars are growly rapidly, and I released my first adult PVS from the second batch of 2014 today, a female. This will be my third batch! We've had a lot of rain lately, so maybe the pipevines will be able to keep up. Sherry

Oh sherry I want that pict as a poster I have ever been a fan of the great Russian Vasily Kandinsky His Abstract Expressionist paintings were inspired(He said) By Moscow in the low sun when those onion shaped roofs Became luminous with flooded colors. When some of his paintings became completely abstracted I Started seeing butterfly wings. I love intense color fields and contrast. DD