I made a big mistake showing my neighbor kids the cats on my rue. They were gone the next day, and I never knew if they made their chrysalises or got eaten by birds or what. Now, I have a bunch of eggs and babies hatching out daily. I just love looking at them multiple times a day. The kids were at our door this evening asking us to identify what they thought was a grasshopper. We think it was a katydid. They had containers with them, and wanted to look for caterpillars. I told them I watch them every day, and want to keep them on the plant. The parents walked over and wanted to visit about the flowers, then I saw the 4 year old girl swishing the rue leaves around looking for cats. I explained to the parents that I don't want them to take them. Hopefully they will leave them alone. When I went to look at them later, I didn't see the largest of them. I imagine it fell when she was swishing the leaves. Another neighbor girl, who is going into the 4th grade joined us, and told us there is a swallowtail on the butterfly bush, and proceeded to tell us a bunch of stuff she knows about butterflies and a number of other insects. The boy wanted to catch a bee, and she said it was mean. He said, "Well, you threw a rock at a butterfly." She said it's because she collects and mounts them for a science project. Maybe I'm going to have to have a visit with her parents. grrr. I told her not to catch butterflies in my yard. Who knows if any of them will respect my wishes. It's not just the birds that predate on the butterflies in my yard. Sue

GSTs are very vulnerable to predators - they're a favorite of both wasps and stink bugs! :( I raise mine in reptarium/butterfly cages. Tdr4, earlier today I released the 41st giant swallowtail that I've released in a little over a week, I'm raising 6 cats and there are more eggs and hatchlings on my host plants. Two of the cats I'm raising now are eating orange tree leaves, and the other four are eating ptelea trifoliata/wafer ash/hops tree leaves - three of the ptelea cats are pupating, in the "C" now, the other one is about to be, but the two orange tree cats are only in about the 3rd instar. Cats grow much faster on ptelea than they do on either citrus leaves or rue leaves, and if you want your citrus tree cats to live at all, you have to give them still tender leaves. I haven't had as many tender leaves to cut for these two citrus cats as I did those in the other batch, so I'm going to get on my ladder and try to find some that don't have eggs and/or hatchling cats on them. Even hatchling GSTs can eat old, relatively tough ptelea leaves and still thrive, plus, ptelea makes a lot of new grow in response to being cut. Since you have to cut a lot of leaves to feed the cats, it stays in an almost continual state of growth, especially when you feed it chicken manure like I do. Maybe if you prune and fertilize your citrus tree and water as needed, you'll get lots of new growth so you can successfully raise your giant swallowtails. They're teeming around here! Do you want some ptelea trifoliata seeds? I noticed some on my woods bushes. You don't have to do anything special to them, just keep them in a cool place all winter, and plant them in the spring - mine all came up this past spring. MissSherry

Hey everyone, there are actually 2 very very simular looking caterpillars and they both feed on Hackberry..: the first one is the TAWNY EMPEROR caterpillar: it is mostly green and has 2 wide yellow stripes on its uppersides and straight yellow bands on its lower sides.The adult has a wingspan of about 2.5 inches. the second one is the HACKBERRY BUTTERFLY caterpillar:it looks very much like the first one mentioned,but this one has yellowish V-markings along the sides,the narrow bands on upper sides are more narrow.The knobs on the head are usually longer than the ones from the Tawny Emperor. This Butterfly is with his 2 inches wingspan a lil smaller than the T.E. and also the colors are a lil lighter. The Hackberry Butterfly is more common.. Butterfly-Greetings Susanne(SUE) Hackberry Butterfly: http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg284.html Here is a link that might be useful: Tawny Emperor

Yes, Ron, I love blue curls. They grow around here already, but they're not very common, so I'm glad to get the seeds. I love the delicate intricacy of the flowers, and blue is my favorite flower color. On our last night before returning home from Georgia, we stayed in a hotel in Thomasville, GA. There were some plants that looked like they'd be butterfly favorites growing in a wet area close to our room, alongside cypress and willow trees, and the fact that they were blooming in late November impressed me. I suspected right away that they were Bidens alba, a plant that is supposed to be invasive, so I'd nixed planting it here before. But seeing that it mainly thrives in sandy soil, I'm thinking it might be limited by the heaviness of my soil. I took two cuttings, but them in a styrofoam coffee cup with a top to keep the water from spilling, brought them home, and put them in rooting containers. The cuttings have remained erect since I cut them, so maybe they'll root, even though my house isn't really warm enough to promote root formation. I'm thinking that this plant may be vigorous enough to root anyway. I took this picture of the flowers - The flowers were just too cute for me to resist. Sherry