This week I’ll largely post photos. That’s what most people want anyway.
There was a lot of emergence in this, the first full week of Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom. We also had three mating pairs, which I haven’t seen this early on. For the most part people kept a respectful distance, but one woman plucked a mating pair off a marigold when I was busy elsewhere and put them on her toddler grandson to photograph. SERIOUSLY? Like you’d want to be bothered that way. And no, they were not at all inclined to separate; I don’t know how long they go at it, but some of them remained fond of each other for my entire 2-hour shift.
Mating great yellow Mormon and swallowtailSame pair, side viewA zebra longwing on one of the marigolds brought into the conservatory for the butterfliesA trio at one of the food dishesA Mexican bluewing whose coloring is more of a light violet than the usual cobalt blueA starry night cracker, one of my favorite varietiesA different starry night cracker, sharing a bananaAnother of our smaller varieties, a buckeyeSomewhat larger, a malachiteA great yellow Mormon without one of its telltale swallow”tails”Same variety, different specimen; note the two “tails”A little girl asked why one butterfly didn’t have eyes and I said it did, but they were black … like this one’sMore flying critters …… and another …… and anotherMating pipevine swallowtails; note the top one’s wing is so battered you can see the yellow of the marigold through it
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.
