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Butterfly Garden

What kind of butterfly will emerge from this chrysalis?

11 years ago

When clipping milkweed near a ditch by our farm, I found this chrysalis in my milkweed clippings. I have never seen a chrysalis in the wild before so I am pretty excited with my finding. I have never seen one like this, could it be an eastern yellow swallowtail butterfly? I just recently seen one in my garden.

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I am up to 384 Monarchs released so far this year, not finding as many eggs or catapillars.

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I was lucky enough to capture a monarch catepillar hatching

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Comments (9)

MissSherry
11 years ago
Wow! What fabulous pictures!

The beautiful chrysalis must be a variegated fritillary. I've seen a picture of a silvery checkerspot chrysalis that looked white and somewhat like a variegated frit, so I guess it could possibly be that, but I doubt it. The white variegated frit chrsyalides are really beautiful, and I've never seen one as white as yours!

There must be violets or passionvines growing nearby.

Sherry
christie_sw_mo
11 years ago
Great photos Minrose - I think you mentioned in another thread that you'd been seeing Painted Ladies so I looked up images of their chrysalises and they look very similar to variegated frits'.

Here is a link that might be useful: google images
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I sure hope it's the last of any arctic blasts here in OKC, MissSherry! He's a beauty, despite his small stature, and I'm sure the females won't know the difference, or won't care, lol! I'm hoping the milkweed shows up earlier than last year. Remember when the migration started and very little milkweed was available yet? I've got a great start on the Fennel, since it rarely gets killed back to the roots, and stays evergreen all winter. Guess what I saw today? A big, beautiful Mourning Cloak! Yeah! Maybe there will be a good population of them this year. It's been awhile since I've seen any great numbers of them around, just one or two here and there. About 5 or 6 years ago, they were plentiful. So, I guess they experience population fluctuations, too. Susan
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What beautiful close-up pictures, Stan! I, too, work on the NY Times crossword every Sunday - I haven't done much on it today, because I've been busy with other things, but I really enjoy it. I can't tell how big the cocoon of the parasitic wasp is, but if it's real tiny, it may be the same !%#!%* insect that parasitizes red admiral cats. I think KC let one live and got a picture of the wasp, which is, not surprisingly, very tiny. I'm presently raising two red admirals from eggs, and both of them are continuing to grow and thrive, so I guess the wasp gets into the nest and injects its egg into the tiny caterpillar - they apparently do this early on, so yours were undoubtedly parasitized when you got them. It's interesting that your butterfly didn't have the white spot in the orange field on top and the pink on the underside. I vaguely remember a poster from Wisconsin saying once that not all American ladies had the white dot - all mine have it, so maybe it's a northern characteristic? I agree that American ladies have some of the most beautiful colors and underside patterns of any butterfly - how many butterflies do we have with pink? And I, too, call them "she" - they are ladies, aren't they? :) Sherry
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I had these attack my Baltimore Checkerspots this year. The Checkerspot cats are really spiny. They were waiting on the side of the netting until the caterpillar started to pupate and then when the chrysalis was still wet, they attacked. I squished as fast as I could. Mona
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I guess BSTs must have various kinds of parasites/parasitoids. The very first year that I raised them (before I got into a routine of bringing them inside as aoon as I saw any BSTs on the plants) I had 4 that had been parasitized. They overwintered and came out the next spring as wasps. They weren't small like the ones in your picture but big like regular wasps and parts of them were reddish brown (I think their legs and maybe something else). I have pictures of them somewhere if only I could find them. I haven't had any problems the past few years with wasps parasitizing BSTs, but I'm vigilant about bringing them in as soon as possible to protect them. Btw, those are very nice pictures even if the subject is one that I don't like. ;-) Cathy
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minrose
Original Author
11 years ago
I have had Painted Ladies chrysalises before and never seen any this white, but some of those images on google look alot like mine, hmmmmm.
terrene
11 years ago
Beautiful pics! Aren't those little hatchers cute?
imabirdnut
11 years ago
I can't wait to see what ecloses!!! Great pictures!
I will be posting some pictures of cats that were on my blue passionvine that look different than the GF cats I usually have...they have a white line down the side! I brought 4 in to see what will eclose...they could be varigated frits or Mexican frits which would be very unusual here...or maybe just a variation of the GFs!
Lila
minrose
Original Author
11 years ago
me too, very anxious but so far it has not eclosed, still pretty white.
About those little monarchs catepillars hatching, I lucked out. Just happened to catch them as they hatched. I had wanted to photograph some hatching and finally I had some good timing. I noticed that these eggs looked a little different. I had two hatch within 45 minutes of each other. Theyboth hatched from the egg July 12 and they have both now eclosed, one eclosed Aug 8 and the other Aug 10. It was interesting as the second one to hatch, was always bigger than the first one so each catepillar can grow at it's own rate, I see.
minrose
Original Author
11 years ago
It ended up being a Painted Lady. I have seen Painted Lady chrysalis before but never seen one so white, but I had never seen one on a milkweed before either. It flew away before I chance to get a really good photo of it.
christie_sw_mo
11 years ago
Thanks for the followup Minrose. I was wondering which one it would be. It's interesting how their colors can vary like that. I've never raised Painted Ladies inside but that makes me want to.
imabirdnut
11 years ago
Minrose, thanks for posting! I was wondering what it could be????
I am just now seeing more PLs in my gardens since this spring but have never raised any either! I had a lot of AL cats on a couple of native weeds that grew in my BF garden that had volunteered & then when they had eaten all of the "weeds", they moved to a small Silver Brocade artemesia I had but I think it is gone now...it didn't like our Texas summer heat! I didn't bring the AL cats in because I didn't have any more food for them!
I would love to raise PLs but I haven't found a good host plant so far! I currently have a nice cardoon growing but so far it has been ignored. What host plants are in your area???
Again, glad it eclosed for you!
Take care,
Lila

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?what to do with this little guy?

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