This was a great day for butterfly flight, because they tend to be more active when the sun is shining. The pond is straight ahead; the emergence case is just around the bend to the right.
This is perhaps the zooiest week at Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom … spring break. We had loads of babies in arms inside the conservatory and strollers parked outside.
There wasn’t time for much picture taking but I did answer a LOT of questions, mostly of the “What kind is that?” variety. With a lot of emergence in the case there were ample opportunities to observe brand-new butterflies, and when one came out halfway but got stuck, I unpinned it from the shelf, brought it around for people to see and as quickly as I could move gently, removed the rest of the chrysalis to free its wings. “It’s like separating layers of wet tissue paper,” I told the handful of people watching, before moving the baby back into the case.
While the wings attract the most attention, I find it interesting how much difference there is in the coloration of the bodies. There is even variety in the eyes, with some solid black while others are spotted.
Among the butterflies on this food dish are a zebra longwing, front, and a paper kite, hanging off the side. The former’s body looks black with white markings, the other white with black.Toward the left you can see the edge of this green banded peacock’s left wing, and the brilliant color it sports on its top side. Look toward the right and you can see that its body matches.This is one of the resident pond frogs. There are two, a male and a female, and they are maybe a decade old. And next to it is a blue morpho, looking pretty oblivious and stupid. Maybe the butterfly was just too big, because the frog ignored it. When one around swallowtail size started to light, though, the frog leapt into action, and both butterflies flitted away.
This small postman decided the outside of the case was a fine to place to chill, thank you.
It’s time for the best 8 weeks of volunteering I will spend all year: tending baby butterflies.
This is the quietest week of Butterflies in Bloom, because the exhibit isn’t open to the public yet. Friday morning it will be; get all the details at www.dowgardens.org/butterflies.
What is there to do with no visitors? The usual: check the chrysalis case for parasites, check further to see who has emerged and if anyone is in trouble, then water the floor. Seriously, because so many of the species we get are jungle and rainforest dwellers, we keep the humidity in the conservatory cranked, so in addition to running the misting fans, we water the floor, which is mostly brick.
This puppy at left (haha!) displays the humidity inside the chrysalis case, with readings updated every 15 minutes.
I release butterflies when they are flying about quite actively, practically beating the glass. How long this takes is closely tied to size. Smaller butterflies might take a couple of hours to fully extend and dry their wings, while some of our largest varieties can take half a day.
I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story, but if you have questions, by all means ask in the comments. And check back the next seven Wednesdays for more butterfly photos.
A view of the “ceiling,” that is, the underside of a shelf. When a chrysalis doesn’t have silk sticking out of it to pin through, we glue on a tuft of cotton. They change appearance as the occupants grow. For example, just before emergence, those green chrysalises will darken until they appear nearly purple.
This guy bummed me out because I don’t think he’s going to make it. This is a brown clipper that got stuck emerging, so the wings were out and starting to dry, but they weren’t completely unfolded because the abdomen was stuck in the chrysalis. I watched him struggle for several minutes, wishing our fabulous entomologist would walk in and save the day, but she didn’t so I unpinned him and gently scraped away the paper-thin trap. Unfortunately, the struggle might have exhausted him, because he didn’t move much after that, although I did see him uncurling and curling his proboscis about an hour and a half later just before I left. (I’m saying “he” but truly I don’t know. Some are easier to tell than others.)
At right, this black and white butterfly resting near the conservatory walls had a silhouette effect.
Some butterflies prefer being close to the ground, like this swallowtail at right. As long as this doesn’t place them near the emergency exit, which carries a wicked breeze beneath it this time of year, near or even on pavement is fine.
This is a view of recently emerged butterflies taken through plexiglass, hence the reflection. (Sorry, but humidity means keeping the case closed as much as possible.) The three black and white creatures just left of center are paper kites, true to the tag at the end of their row. The one second from left had emerged just a few minutes prior, hence the fatter body. To the right is a leopard lacewing.
Some of our butterflies are hybrids of two varieties, like this longwing at right. This is near the small pond, home to a pair of quite old frogs who have learned to love this annual exhibit.
This might be tough to decipher at first. This leopard lacewing is clinging to the flower, not flying. The redder coloration to the left is the underside of its wing.
A sunny day meant lots of emergence for Butterflies in Bloom this week. When the temperature hit 85 in the Conservatory, the vents opened, so keeping the floors wet was a challenge this week. I still managed to squeeze in a few photos, and stayed after my shift to try for a few more.
This shows the underside of the wing of the butterfly pictured at top, the spicebush swallowtail. This one is hanging in our “nursery” Norfolk pine for some extra attention and drying time.
A Mexican bluewing still in the chrysalis case. The dark spots on the TENA pad are meconium, or waste fluid, that the butterflies expel as they unfurl and flap their wings to dry while hanging. We put pads under each chrysalis shelf and spray them heavily with water to boost the humidity in the case.
A chrysalis for one of the owl butterflies, I believe the giant owl. See how it’s transparent at the top? The Dow Gardens entomologist, Elly Maxwell Grosteffon, said this one likely would be emerging within the next day.
I reached out to Elly for help when I couldn’t identify this while editing and she told me it is a lacewing. Many photos show the tops of butterfly wings, so identifying by the undersides is harder. It gets trickier still because so many varieties have duller undersides for camouflage, such as the popular blue morpho, which is brown with a line of large spots on the undersides, but a brilliant blue on the wing tops. The blue morphos also are notoriously uncooperative for cameras.
A small postman.
A giant swallowtail.
A queen, which is the type, not the gender. It is somewhat battered, likely from courting rituals. I find the orange Julias and zebra longwings especially amorous, and sometimes gently shoo them out of the nursery when they try to mate with a new insect, such as the orange sulphur that crashed with its wings furled and had trouble hanging onto the tree at all. Sadly, it did not survive.
Above, a pipevine swallowtail. Below, my favorite photo of the week, a paper kite hanging from its chrysalis.
This puppy at left (haha!) displays the humidity inside the chrysalis case, with readings updated every 15 minutes.
Beth's Planet 