Out here in CA I am seeing one or two monarchs a day and west coast ladies as well as some painted ladies. This week I have seen one or two pipevine swallowtails that appeared newly hatched and yesterday I saw an anise swallowtail out front. There may have been more butterflies but I have been feeling sick for at least a week and didn't have the energy to go outside very much. Whatever I could see from the couch was noted but anything else would have escaped my notice. I have had a couple of blood tests during the last couple of months trying to see what is going on and I am hoping it is not diabetes and just hypoglycemia which I have had off and on for years. I can tell you that getting old is not for the faint-hearted. I am disappointed by the poor numbers of monarchs this year so far and partly because we have had several hot-spells and now seem to be headed for rain and perhaps an early fall. There is still hope though as October and November are normally good periods for monarchs here if it doesn't rain too much.

LOL, Annette, I did let nature take its course, and the cats are either eaten or chrysalises. When I was first finding information about the moth, I read somewhere that it feeds on other euphorbias besides the narrow leaf kind. Today, I did further research on euphorbias and couldn't tell from the Nebraska Extension Office and other sites. My two plants are shorter, and did not appear to be spreading. I tried to find the one I'm growing, but since there are over 2,000 kinds of euphorbias, I was unable to look at all of them. I went over to my friend's and looked at her patch. It is spreading on a stem lying down on the ground like the ones on the site. When I came home from my friend's I decided to pull the plants just in case that's what they are. I was surprised at how much root came out with them, and what looked like little starts of new plants, as well. I don't expect to need chemicals to control any new plants that emerge, because I am good at keeping on top of things like that. When I talked to my friend later, she said the guy who gave the plants to her called them something else. She didn't know they were euphorbias. I let her know they are illegal to grow. Do these look like what you have, MeMo? Thanks for the warning, Sue

Susan, Thanks for linking the thread. I enjoyed reading it and the articles linked within the thread too. Everything they said....I heartily second. This certainly is an epic year. You might remember way back in March when I was commenting on the huge abundance of moths (oh, how I wish I had known they were cutworm moths then---I would have been running around spraying and swatting them) and I compared their numbers to something from a "horror movie". Nothing has changed, but now the scales have tipped a bit so that there's a lot fewer destructive moths here and a lot more beautiful butterflies. So, the horror movie has abated and the beautiful butterfly population has taken over. Every plant I have in bloom that appeals to butterflies or moths of any type is covered by them all day and evening. They almost are fighting over the blossoms, or at least standing in line waiting to get to them. Our wasp population is still so low it is almost non-existent, so I expect the high populations to continue. I've only seen a couple of red wasps this entire spring, and no black wasps or yellow jackets. However, a couple of weeks ago the small predatory/parasitic wasps starting showing up. I was relieved to see them and the lacewings, but wish they'd been here two months earlier. The bee population seems lower too, but I had a lot of them when the fruit trees were in bloom and when the hollies were blooming. Otherwise, though, I am not seeing many bees. I'm not having any pollination issues in the garden, so there are enough pollinators for that to occur as usual. Just name any butterfly that a person might see in southern OK, and I am seeing them here. I'm even seeing some I almost never, ever see. Furthermore, they seem extraordinarily friendly. What's up with that? I cannot count the times I've had butterflies come land on my shirt, my arm, my head, my face...or even fly right into my mouth while I'm talking this year. I just don't recall that happening much at all in the past. I'm also seeing caterpillars I've never seen before, and I have no idea what most of them are. I had a cherry hornworm in the garden on Sunday. I don't know why it was there. I don't think there's anything in my garden that's a host for it, but our woodland has oodles of wild cherry trees as understory plants. I removed it from the garden, and put it under a tree on the edge of the woods. The cutworm population here is dropping, I'm happy to say, but I still find one now and then or see one of the moths. I am seeing ever-increasing numbers of sphinx moths of all kinds---not just the usual ones we always see, but others that I don't recognize. I believe your assessment that conditions in OK mirror those in Texas is a valid one and I wholeheartedly agree. Of course, I'm surrounded by Texas on three sides, so that would not be surprising. I've been very concerned about the swallowtails. None of their cats has taken one single bite of my parsley yet, which is planted more for them than for us. In the last two weeks, I've seen 2 or 4 swallowtails a week, but prior to that, I was seeing maybe 1 per week if any at all. Those darned checkered whites and cabbage whites are still everywhere and I hate having them here, but they're really the only cats causing damage in my garden other than the climbing cutworms. I think we're going to have a wonderful summer in terms of butterflies. I worry we'll have too many moth cats though. I haven't seen any SVB moths yet, but am expecting them any time. If ever there was a year to cover squash plants with floating row covers for as long as possible, this is it. I've linked a report on lepidoptera observations made in southeastern OK, not too far from me. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Report on Southern OK Lepidoptera Population

I don't know how long it takes, because I just put mine in a terrarium under wadded up paper towels, then put this terrarium in my dark guest room and covered it with towels to keep it dark. I forgot about them, and when I remembered to check on them, they had made their pupae. I'll be putting them outside in the big cage with the other pupae, chrysalides and cocoons. They're interesting looking, because they partially retain some of the spots that were on the caterpillars. I probably should mention that I knew they were ready to pupate, because, in addition to being big, they purged, not as much as swallowtails do, but definitely purged. Sherry