Do caterpillars eat pansies?

12 years ago

Can Fritillary cats eats pansies? On a whim a bought a blue passiflora (passiflora caerulea, no variety listed) from a big box home store and planted it near some pansies. Now I have tiny orange and black caterpillars and the caterpillars are also eating the pansies. Is it because the cats can't eat this kind of passiflora? It seems like some of the passiflora leaves have been nibbled, but I actually saw the caterpillars eating pansy leaves.

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Comments (9)

MissSherry
12 years ago
Since pansies are violets, it's expected that they'd eat pansies. Passionvines are closely related to violets, and variegated fritillaries eat both. Still, even if they're VFs, it's a little surprising they'd eat P. caerulea - mine never would, just P. incarnata/maypops. Also, my VFs don't occur in groups just very singly.

Maybe these frits are true frits, like great-spangled, aphrodite or meadow fritillaries? In any case, congrats!

Sherry
bedford8a
Original Author
12 years ago
I looked online and yes, they are variegated fritillaries. We had a very warm March with lots of rain the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and had lots of butterflies in March and April. My flowers were covered in butterflies like I'd never seen before. Now, not so much. There is an invasive weed taking over Texas, B***tard Cabbage, and all the municipalities mowed their grass to keep it from spreading. But the butterflies are gone now, too.
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wifey2mikey
12 years ago
I've got variegated fritillary cats on a p. Caerulea now. I was at Lowe's to get some annuals and a v. frit landed on a plant and started laying eggs - so I bought the plant! I've got several cats on it now.

~L
MissSherry
12 years ago
That's interesting, about VFs laying eggs on P. caerulea. I guess the ones here just used the P. incarnata, because it was always available - and more plentiful - than the P. caerulea.
Congrats on the variegated frits! I haven't gotten any so far this year, but then they're always unpredictable.

Sherry
wifey2mikey
12 years ago
Here's a cat! :-)

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imabirdnut
12 years ago
I have never had Varigated Frit cats in my yard before but I left a bed of pansies instead of removing them this year & I still have had a ton of VF cats all over them. This is the first year also that I've seen this many VF butterflies in my yard as well! I have violets all over my shaded areas & have never seen cats on them even though they are listed as one of their host plants! I have Gulf Frits on my passionvines but again...have never seen VF cats on them either! Pansies usually die by now with our temps being in the 90s but I have been watering them every other day & they are still alive with the cats on them! ;o)
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susanlynne48
12 years ago
There has been an explosion in population of Variegated Fritillaries this year. I rarely see them, but I have tons of them in the garden. I discovered the best time to look for the cats yesterday; around 6:00 p.m. (CST). They were everywhere.

Population extremes this year have included the VFs, Red Admirals, QMs, and Mourning Cloaks in my area. Never seen anything like it here either.

Not complaining at all, BTW.

Right now I have eggs of Monarchs, Black Swallowtails, VFs, QMs, Gulf Fritillaries, Red Admirals, probably Hackberry and Tawny Emperors (haven't checked the trees yet), Cabbage Whites. Also had tons of Eight-Spotted Forester cats on the Virginia Creeper, but they have all pupated. They come in spring and I never see them after that. Very pretty little moth also mistaken for a butterfly because they are diurnal.

There are a lot of pests around, too, to equalize the good.

Susan
caterwallin
12 years ago
Hearing about all of this abundance of butterflies this year makes me really glad that my false nettle is doing well and that I planted lots of violas. When I planted violas last year, the VFs seemed to really like the flowers the best (over the leaves), so I hardly got to see my beautiful flowers anyway. lol I haven't seen any VFs yet this year, but I've seen Red Admirals flying around and one was hanging around the False Nettles, so I suspect that I have some eggs on them. Yesterday I had a Question Mark lay eggs on the two small hackberry trees that I have in 3-gallon pots. I haven't seen any Monarchs yet, but I don't have any of my tropical milkweed planted outside yet and now we're supposed to have showers for the next few days, so I probably won't get around to planting some until this weekend at the earliest. I saw that the Wild Indigo Duskywings and Clouded Sulphurs were busy laying eggs on the Baptisia australis and Lupinus perennis. This butterfly season seems to be a good one so far. If I had more plants blooming right now, maybe I'd have more butterflies hanging out here, but I have lots of host plants for various kinds of butterflies, so I hope that they don't fly on past. The only thing that I have blooming right now is the dianthus, but others will be blooming in the next few weeks.
Cathy
larry_gene
12 years ago
I have added VF + pansies to the hostplant FAQ.