Found a second one! Wheeeee!

Yeeee-haaaa! What fun! I swear, the joy in raising a new species...

WOW!! I'm absolutely green with envy! I can't help you ID the plant, but congrats, congrats! The adults are amazingly beautiful - wish I got them here!
Sherry

WOW! Congratulations!

Edna

That is a fantastic find, BG, since they are so rare to find these days (typical habitat destruction). Please photograph it as it matures. I'd like to see what happens.

Maryann raised some at one time, I believe.

Susan

Hi Susan,

After I calmed down, I figured I better see if anyone else has reared them to see what they might need. I found Maryann's thread from last year; Maryann, if you see this, can you update us about your babies?

I found a smaller instar on a different plant. I will keep my eyes out for more.

Guess I'll order more chelone glabra for them just in case. In my wanderings in all of the conserved areas around here, I haven't seen any chelone in the wild.

Last year, just when the chelone glabra was about to bloom, the deer ate it and sheered a good part of it. Hope it doesn't happen again. Maybe DH and I can figure out how to put some netting up.

I'll keep updating. Have to figure out what these plants are that they are on.

Wow, you lucky girl. I'm glad you read my thread from last year. I find that I have to reference old threads from time to time...they are a great record keeping device.

My first instinct upon reading your thread was to ask if you actually SAW them eating that particular plant. They may have actually been eating another plant nearby, and are now in the walking around looking to pupate stage.

When mine got at that point, they wandered off the plantain I was raising them on. In fear, I kept putting them back because I was afraid they'd wander to the lawn and get mowed. Well, finally I gave up because they were determined to wander. They pupated on various objects..bamboo sticks, remay fabric, five gallon buckets..in the wild they'd often pupate on dried tall grass from the year before.

I don't know what that plant is either but it seems like after they overwinter, they become less restrictive about what they eat.

After raising many and releasing them, they took off, never to be seen again...I just don't have the right habitat, but there is certainly enough plantain for them...

I know they also LOVED the Penstemon I had, could your plant be related to that?

Congrats, and yes, the deer LOVE turtlehead.

Maryann

Ooh, ooh, you lucky person! I would just love to get those! Sorry I don't know what the plant is. I planted Penstemon hirsutus last year and they're blooming this year. I started Chelone glabra this year, so I guess I'll have to wait until next year for those to bloom. I don't know if I'll be able to get BC cats though because where I have them isn't really what you'd call a meadow. I have them in the same bed with my swamp milkweed plants. I didn't plant the C. glabra outside yet because the plants aren't quite big enough. Would it be possible for you to post a pic of your "meadow". I'd really like to see what it looks like because if yours isn't quite a meadow, then maybe there is some hope for me getting some cats. :) Congrats on getting the BC cats!!!
Cathy

WOW!! Lucky you!!
Could you post pictures of the whole plant? Sun,shade,dry soil,sand,clay??
I'll try to help, What an exciting find!!
-B

Hi Maryann, Such a good point about the food plant! They were eating it; they are oblivious to someone hanging around them--they just keep eating away.

The third one was on a different plant, so I brought that plant in, will take a pic later, and now one of the original two is munching on it. I'll try to get a pic later. Glad that there are two food sources on it.

Cathy, I'll get a pic later of my "meadow"; we live in an area with lots of wetlands, and my meadow sits in a depression in our yard. When we first moved here, we couldn't get grass to grow, and I had just finished reading Michael Pollen's Second Nature in which he talks about the history of lawns and his experiments with no longer mowing his lawn.

So, we stopped mowing, letting it grow and do its thing. We were rewarded with native grasses and native plants. I'm always finding little gems...trailing arbutus, closed bottle gentian, pink lady slippers, painted trilliums, sessile bellwort, and now these guys!

I love having this area, and in the back we have a drier meadow along the edge of the woods, but the trees are beginning to come in. The saplings will hopefully be handy for checking for caterpillars. Mostly birch and aspen out there. And in the summer, the butterflies are all over the place with all of the goldenrod, asters, and boneset out there.

Keep the faith with the chelone--they may come--I never thought they'd come to my yard!

BG, I agree with you that they don't look like plantain, honeysuckle, or viburnum. I looked up Common Lousewort and the leaves don't look like that either, nor do they look like Yellow Foxglove. I think I'll vote for Hairy Beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus) because I think mine look like that. I could be wrong about the ID but the leaves look like that one to me. I'll look it up on the net because I don't have a camera to take a picture of mine. Okay, I'll watch for you to post a pictures of your meadow, that would be great. It sounds like the BC's would really love it there at your place. If I remember correctly, I think that Chelone glabra is usually in a wet area when found in the wild, so I don't know if the BC's have come to know that type of area as home and won't go anywhere else to lay their eggs even if someone has it planted in a regular garden, or if the BC's would go there anyway to lay their eggs. I'm hoping the latter is correct. I have mine pretty close to a woods and it's near a kind of wet area but not right at it. No area of our yard stays wet all spring and summer; the water just lays in a lower part of the yard for awhile (like a few days) after it rains sometimes, and it takes it awhile to dry off in the spring. It's dried off by now.

I like your idea of letting your yard go back to nature. So you just let it grow and didn't kill it off to plant certain things? I had been thinking of making a "meadow" in a section of our backyard and planting some native grasses there for the skippers and possibly some wildflowers too. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact there are woods all around us and I'm afraid that small trees would keep wanting to grow up in it. I also don't like the fact that snakes would be crawling around in there, so I would be afraid to venture in there at all to look for cats. I guess I'd just let them do their own thing. After all, I can't raise every single cat that is in our yard. It keeps me busy just to care for the Monarchs and some BSTs. Last year I raised over 500 Monarchs and it was all I could do to keep sane. lol Anyway, I do like the fact that letting the grass grow would mean that we'd no longer have to buy gas for the mower. The thing is, we just bought it last year. :/ So do you have your entire yard growing naturally or do you mow some of it so you're able to walk around? I'll have to bring the subject up to hubby and see what he has to say about it.

Okay, I found a picture of the penstemon and maybe you can tell by looking at the picture if that's what you have.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hairy Beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus)

I let my backyard go, too! The butterflies love the "short grass prairie" I have back there. Gives them the feeling of natural habitat. They hang out there a lot because it gets partial shade. Sometimes the front yard gets awfully hot, and I think they like to take a break in the shadier, cooler backyard. I have lots of mistflower, dandelions, clover, and some wildflowers I have yet to ID. It's amazing to discover what grows there year to year (bird droppings), that I didn't have a clue about when it was being mowed.

Susan

Here are a couple pics of my meadow. Brandy, thanks for the help. It's a wet meadow, sort of loamy; it was a new construction in 2003, so the soil is rebuilding.

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One of the cats is in a "j" position, so I assume he is going to pupate?

Oh, you'll just love the chrysalis. Like a little gold studded gem!

Maryann in CT

BG, Thanks so much for posting those meadow pics! I love it! I can see why the BC's would like it there at your place! My Penstemon hirsutus is blooming and looks so pretty, but I wouldn't mind at all if some BC cats would come along and chomp on my plants. :) I probably won't planted my Chelone glabra for another week or two. It's not real big, and I'm digging sod anyway. My goal is to have all of that dug up in another week if the weather cooperates, and then I can get to planting finally!
I appreciate your taking the time to post those really nice pictures!
Cathy