I saw first zebra recently, and have gathered several nice cats from a pawpaw patch very near our house. I was just out there this morning to get fresh leaves for the cats. First time finding and raising eurytides marcellus...

And my dill I started from seed is doing well but hasn't got any black swallowtail eggs/cats yet, but I've also got carrots growing and have started some parsley so I hope they'll show up soon.

I was on a canoe trip on memorial day, and when we stopped at some nice rapids I found 8 full-sized monarch larvae on some milkweed species I hadn't seen before, I took them with us on the very rainy trip down the creek and 4 of them surived, now they are going into pre-pupa. Second time raising monarchs.

A couple weeks ago I collected a cluster of baby pipevine swallowtail larvae, and just in the past couple days they've pupated. One of them was behind all the others and was looking for something to eat...the leaves were all dark and gone bad...so he dug into one of the pupas and ate about half of it...so I gave him a fresh leaf to save the others from being cannibalized.

I also caught a female polyphemus moth which layed a bunch of eggs, and I am waiting for them to hatch.

I saw plenty of tiger swallowtails this April, and have been looking for the larvae on their favorite host plants...hopefully will find one or two soon...

I also collected a couple painted lady larvae from thistles a couple weeks ago, but didn't care for them and let them to wander away and die...so I may go looking again for more and raising them to adults.

My #1 most wanted lepidopteran is the luna moth. Not a butterfly but being rare and very cool looking I want one very bad...and we have some good persimmons in the woods behind our house, and that's their favorite host around here, so I'm leaving our screened porch light on at night in hopes of finding one. I would love to raise some larvae but most of the persimmons have the leaves way up high out of reach...

Oh and I forgot, I collected some baby snowberry clearwing moth larvae from honeysuckle in late April, now I've got 2 pupas and waiting...

OK that's all I can think of for now. I might post some pics sometime of my larvae/pupae/adult butterflies (and moths).

catman- Dont know if youd like to find wild ones, but you could buy some cocoons or eggs of Luna. The link below is good, I get them myself. If youd like to find wild ones, buy a black light, fluorescent light, or mercury light nect to a cloth on your roof and maybe you will find some.
I saw a Painted Lady today, in LB, Long Island.
-S.B.

Frederick Co, MD 5/29/08 -- First Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) eggs of the season -- on volunteer dill, no less. :)

Jeff

5/25/08 - Tawny Emperor

Susan

I saw my first monarch adult today!!WOO-HOO!! Does that mean no more frosts??
I also saw a tiger swallowtail two days ago and a little blue one that I couldn't ID, maybe eastern-tailed blue?? Seems like there was more orange on the hind wings though.
-B

Yesterday, watched a Red Admiral and a Question Mark deposit eggs on my stinging nettles. Brought in two eggs of each type. Tried to get the RA to lay some more in an aquarium with some nettles but, AFAIK, she was not interested.

hello
my false nettle has not done well(imagin that I can't grow a weed LOL) so I don't think I will get red admerals this spring.
we went out to a farm road by the river and found our first monarch eggs and cats for the year. some of the milkweed had been mowed down the day before, and I checked all the wilted plants as good as I could and found several cats on them GRRRRR. all in all we ended up with 13 cats(very tiney ist instar) and 4 eggs.
a little off topic on the way home(racing the thunder storms home) we saved 2 very small turtles from being smashed on the road, they looked like they had just hatched on the east side of the road and the river is on the west side. I put them in our pond for now if they do ok I'll take them out to my inlaws farm, they have lake out there.

happy caterpilar hunting
michelle

Michelle - your False Nettle has not come up? Or, just not doing well?

Last year, I thought mine had been killed over winter, only to find them coming up in June!! That was very late for them. I had even purchased more because I thought they were goners. You're in a much cooler zone, so they may either a) be late in emerging from seed; or b) will come up from the roots eventually.

Susan

Found 7 giant Swallowtail eggs on my Wild Lime - Lakeland, FL on June 1st.

make that cats, NOT EGGS!

NNJ:
Well, I saw my first black swallowtail butterfly on Friday, May 30th, and found 15 tiny bst cats on my parsley on May 31st. Well, 15 that I could count anyway...

saturniidaebreeder - I would much prefer to have a wild speicmen. Last fall I found a cocoon below a big persimmon tree, but the pupa died early in the winter. I've found a total of 3 luna cocoons, two of which were empty.

I'm getting some red and green LED's in the mail from Hong Kong for my bike, but I also purchased 3 UV LED's which I will probably use for a mini bug light to mount on my window (3rd story window facing the woods full of luna hostplants). I don't know if 3 LED's will be enough but I could always get more. I think it's the cheapest and most energy-efficient black light but I haven't tried it yet.

Within the past 2 weeks I've found 2 giant silkworm moths, first was a polyphemus female which left me with a bunch of eggs, which hatched into a LOT of baby caterpillars which I am rearing...and the second was a cecropia cocoon in a small cherry tree near the edge of the woods, and I removed the pupa (which was a male) from the cocoon and it emerged yesterday morning. I don't know if I'm too late for the spring luna brood, but I'm keeping my eye out for adults, cats and cocoons.

This Monarch was around for a few days before I could snap a photo on June 4th. There are more!
{{gwi:475106}}

This beauty eluded my camera for a few days. This photo is from this morning June 6:

{{gwi:475107}}

There are also Pearls, Buckeyes, and BSTs around.

I've not seen any eggs yet on the asclepias nor the bronze fennel. I'm watching closely.

Cameron

6/6/08 - Walnut Sphinx (overwintered in container)

Susan

First swallowtail cats last week, and this week my passionvine is COVERED in gulf frit cats (finally! That vine was eating the yard but I didn't want to cut it back for fear of running out of food for the cats like last year). :)

I think our cooler and longer spring this year has held a bunch of butterflies further south and possibly still in Mexico. I have yet to see the GFs. But, my passion vines need to put on more growth yet so that's okay.

Also, no pipevines yet either.

Susan

I have 3 BST cats on the bronze fennel this evening.

Cameron

A guy that lives two doors down came over tonight to show me a picture of a moth which he had found on his house. He thought it was a weird Cecropia but I wasn't buying that because the body had none of the colorations of a Cecropia. I suspected it was a Tulip Tree Moth but since I had never seen one before, I grabbed my Covell book and found out my suspicion was correct. I planted a Tulip Tree last year with the hope that Tulip Tree Moths were in the neighborhood. Now, I have more than hope :D

KC

Had a black swallowtail in the garden yesterday, don't think there was any egg laying 'cause it was real windy. Poor guy was having a hard time keeping by the fence!! I have planted bronze fennel,florence fennel(free seeds), and parsely(not to mention all the free queen annes lace!!LOL!!)in hopes of luring them to the garden. Have only seen a few Monarchs, nothing on the milkweed yet.
-B

Brandy, I have never found cat's on my Queen Anne's Lace (which I now believe is actually wild carrots). However, the BSTs like to nectar on the flowers, so I let it grow for them.

Susan

I'm pretty sure that Queen Anne's Lace is the same thing as Wild Carrot. Again, the joys of English names.
-Jmcat

Saw my first Summer, Spring, and Apalachian Azures yesterday (6/8/08) and Green Commas as well.
S.B.

A LIFETIME FIRST in Camelot in SW VA

6/9/08--Gulf fritillary (According to Jeffrey Glassberg's Butterflies through Binoculars:The East, we seldom get these beauties in our area.)

mike

Hmmmm. I don't think so, Jmcat, but that's okay.

Mike, congrats to you! Maybe they wound their way around the coastline instead of heading to Oklahoma! LOL!

Susan

It could also be that Queen Anne's Lace and Wild Carrot both have multiple plants that they refer to. Here's Daucus carota, Which is what I'm familiar with as Queen Anne's Lace.
-Jmcat