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Butterfly Garden

pvs cat update

17 years ago

There are 76 cats about the size of my little finger so I think they are about ready for pupa - I am! I started with 81 and so lost 5 which is not bad. I am getting the vine from others as mine would be sticks now.

I have about 25 little ones and the eggs still in the refrigerator. I check them and they have not progressed, have not dried up and next Thursday will be 2 weeks so I plan to take some out and see if they hatch.

Penny

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Comments (3)

MissSherry
17 years ago
I'm interested to see if the egg refrigeration thing works for you - I think it will.
Those PVS cats have voracious appetites don't they?
MissSherry
tdogmom
17 years ago
Boy, I'll say! I was out in the garden today checking out my Aristolochia (what's left of them, that is) after having fed the cats I got from Penny. tee-hee! There were no leaves left after the munchers ate through three plants. :) Thank goodness the these plants grow so quickly. :)
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I do the same thing with the cocoons I find as well. Now I am watching a brood of pvs cats who are just now in the last few days begun to reach pupating stage and sadly two have died after spending a day or so preparing their girdles. I am hoping that the rest will be successful. Last year I reared probably 200 or more with hardly any casualties. It made this spring so wonderful when I had so many to release. But we will see. This year I just didn't have the strength and motivation. Murray
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What area of MO do you live in, Crittergirl? I'm kinda familiar with Missouri, since I'm originally from SE Kansas, and now Oklahoma. We are getting lots of Pipevines this year, too. Heck, we're getting lots of butterflies, period! Congrats on your PVS cats - they're such gregarious lil things. I think that if you check our vendor list here, there are several mail-order sources for different pipevines. In our area, Aristolochia tomentosa, A. macrophylla, A. serpentaria, and A. clematitis do the best. The first 3 are all natives. A. clematitis is of mediterrania origin, but it works just great. It's not a vine, and I think it gets about 2'-2.5' tall. I'm finding that pinching back my pipevines really helps to stimulate new growth on them. Susan
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I bet you WERE surprised to see PVS cats this late in the year! If I were you, I'd raise them inside - if you take them back outside, the cooler temps will kill them, at least that's the experience I've had, something about going from cool to warm to cool doesn't suit them. I'm keeping my chrysalids in my unheated guest room with the blinds drawn for darkness - it stays real cool in there, but doesn't get real cold, never freezes. I closed the air-conditioning/heating vent in that room and keep the door closed. I'll bring my chrysalids outside to the front porch when the aristolochias have started making new growth - a few may emerge before that, but most won't, so the majority of them will have some plant material to lay their eggs on. Congratulations, I guess - actually, I'm glad mine are finished for the year! We had our first real freeze last night, got down to 29 degrees here, but it's already warming up. MissSherry
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susanlynne48
17 years ago
I guess this means that we never have enough food for any caterpillar, right? I always get really low on passion vine when the Gulf Fritillaries are here, low on milkweed when the Monarchs are in abundance, and low on Rue and parsley when the Black Swallowtails are here.

I keep crossing my fingers and hoping that the PVS's will NOT lay eggs on my pipevines until they are big enough to sustain a population. Right now, I'm hoping the 8-spotted foresters and eumorpha achemons will leave some VC on the vines. They eat all the tender, new foliage first. The EAs eat a TON of foliage. Voracious appetites. But, yesterday, it seemed like every new tendril I checked had an 8SF on it. I don't recall ever having that many.

I've never had many caterpillars this early in the season, like the sulphurs for example. So, this is a new and exciting experience for me.

I hope Linda is okay, those tornados were fairly close to her. Geez, what a night for those folks in western Oklahoma. The town of Sweetwater had great damage to the school that they rebuilt after a tornado in 2003. Those "after dark" tornados are frightening - even to the storm trackers - because they can't SEE the tornados developing.

Susan

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