We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/892954/
Wow, we sure are filling up these threads fast! My caterpillars said they felt neglected and wanted their picture taken. So here's Wiggles, my big Monarch cat. He's preparing to make his silk button right now and assume the J position.
Whoa...that is a big 'un!!!
~ Cat
He sure looks like he has been well fed. LOL Now maybe that makes him a bigger butterfly???
Elaine
Is there a way/ behavior to tell if my BST cat is getting to pupate?
Good question nanny. I have 5 that I rescued and they are getting fat and leaving lots of green pooh. I will probably have to buy some parsley tomorrow, since they have pretty much eaten all mine. will try to find organic.
BST cats get very large in their last instar and when they are ready to pupate they will "expel" everything they have stored inside and leave a nasty greenish/black blob somewhere in your cage. Once they've done this they will wander around looking for their perfect place. Monarchs don't do this so you just have to watch their size and when they start moving towards the top of the cage.
aah...well just checked the bottom of the box. Black blob on the bottom and this afternoon it was roaming all over. In fact, I went out and got another stick and stuck it going across from side to side. It finally got on that and has been there all evening now. It is not all stretched out, but kind if scrunched up like.
thanks kk, I think mine are ready. They've pretty much quit eating except for the smallest one. I am taking them to school tomorrow. I also took my gulf frits in that I rescued and 2 of them eclosed while we watched. The little first graders loved it. took them out and released them.
nanny... The BST's scrunched look is a 'comma' and it will hold that position for a day usually. Then the next day, it will make it's chrysalis. Since you are so far north, I wonder if yours will over winter and not emerge until spring.
Anyone???
Butterflies and moths website says they overwinter as a chrysalis : ) I have some bst cats that I also think will wait until spring.
You mean I may have the little bugger sittin here all winter?? lol
Ooo...and my Question Mark who pupated last week...what about him?
He will more than likely emerge, and the BSTs may too. But they are so unpredicitable at times. I have a BST this morning that I have had about 6 weeks that decided to emerge today! Now if his other 5 or 6 friends would do the same I would be a happy momma.
Two of my first ever Gulf Frits eclosed this morning!! I just let one out of the crate, and she landed on my shirt front and just sat there for a while, so I got such a good look at her (or him, I haven't figured out the difference yet, though this one seemed smaller than the one hovering over my passion vine at that very minute; are the males smaller?). A BST in my other crate also eclosed and is drying off before flight.
But I found two of my GF cats I'd thought about ready to pupate, all curled up on the bottom of the crate, and white! They've moved a little when I touched them, otherwise I thought they were dead. Anybody know what that's about? It's like they're drained of all their brown pigment, kind of eerie.
That coloring is normal during the chrysalis process. Just so happens I have one forming this morning. Excuse the blurry pics, not used to the baby Nikon yet. This is what it looked like earlier in the normal "J" position.
This one was taken about an hour later. The white color is still there for now, when it dries it will turn darker.
SIX weeks on the BST! OMG. Well, my first one of this group pupated on the 21, so it should be eclosing (Look, i used the word!) on Sunday, then the next one the day after. If it does not, then what? What in the world do I do with these pupa? Just leave them in their cage in the garage???
I found my first chrysalis before Tropical Storm Fay hit us and decided to bring in inside into a small aquarium. After about a week the chrysalis looked like it had fallen apart and I started taking the branches out of the aquarium when lo and behold there was the Sulfur butterfly! Here is a pic I took after releasing him into the yard.
Mrs. Ed, it's amazing how long they can stay in the chrysallis!! I had some BST chrysalides that hadn't eclosed last fall, and I figured they weren't viable. Still, I didn't want to throw them out. I put the crate out in the garage in November, on top of the spare fridge out there. I kept on eye on it because I'd read in the forums of a guy who had put his crate in storage only to find some dead butterflies in it the following spring. Sure enough, on Valentine's day when I was getting some milk out of the fridge, there were two fresh new BSTs! Thru May 5th, the rest of them, 23, eclosed. I couldn't believe how long they'd spent in those dried up looking things! They truly are miraculous little creatures!
Thanks Mrs. Ed! That was my next question too. lol
Sheila, thanks for the info and the pix. Mine weren't hanging though, they were curled up on the crate floor! I feel so awful, I thought they were dying, and I put them outside on leaves of the passionvine, and now I don't see them.
Okay, so up here in the north, in an unheated garage, in the same cage they are in is okay?
I guess that's probably warmer than outside anyway. Amazing.
Ok, a Floridian probably shouldn't be giving advice on overwintering, but I'm going to do it anyway, LOL! We overwinter lots of Yankees, hee hee! Yes, you can just leave them in whatever cage they're in - just don't forget to check them every now and then. I've also heard it's a good idea to mist them occasionally (once a week or so). They will happily stay like that through the winter. Or spring. Sometimes they don't know what season it is.
Actually, I think I need to give some of my chrysalids sunlight therapy because I think the house is fooling them by being too dark and cool. As long as the chrysalis isn't leaking or turning some weird color, it's probably still viable. Kristen, my boss at MOSI had a Tiger ST that stayed in its chrysalis for 11 months! She thought it was a goner and was using it in a lecture at a school when it decided to come out! The teacher told her she planned that well, and Kristen was like, "You have no idea!"
Melanie
Oh, that's funny! What are the odds! But most overwintering chrysallises need the exposure to cold to keep them from emerging in the winter. If left in a warm house, they might eclose during a cold winter...and nothing is sadder than to see that happen. That's one reason I worry about caterpillars escaping in the house in the fall. Some species that are programmed to delay eclosing in the fall will later eclose in the winter if temps are warm.
Mrs. Ed, I lived in Chicago thru a few winters back in the 70's. I don't know if your area gets as cold as it did near the lake, but if so, I would nix the misting. You'll turn those chyrsallises into popsicles!
My wintering over guys started coming out in February, and I was so worried about them finding flowers, but everyone here said they'd be able to find flowering weeds and stuff. Our garage gets cold in the winter, but not probably as cold as Mrs. Ed's! They're likely wintering over in the wild in your area, so they'd be able to take a cold garage I would think, and they'd probably be happy to be out of the wind and the precip. I mean if a chrysallis CAN be happy.....
Mrs Ed...I think we better hope our guys eclose soon! I hadn't planned on long term care here...
Wintering in the wild means rain, sleet, snow, etc. I dont' think misting on a above freezing temp day, especially when they are in a storage room, garage etc., would hurt. We dont' wet cats since they get the moisture they need from the plants. But after two weeks I begin misting once a week or week and half to keep the chrysalis plyable. I figure if they get wet outside, they should get wet inside.
I feel the best thing to do is put them in a room with no heat or a/c. It would be more of the natural environment. It does however need circulation (window open) so the dry air and humidity is involved.
But then I don't live up north either!
Cross posted Nanny..lol!! You can always ship them to mellie in FL!
This message was edited Aug 27, 2008 2:52 PM
rut roh, I'm supposed to be misting BSTs? crud. i thought that was only monarchs
I misted mine, now and then, last year when I first started with my BST's. Then I read somewhere that you shouldn't so I stopped. But it really seems like it would be more natural, like Sheila says, they get wet outside in the wild.
I've always been a little worried about raising them in a/c. I keep my crates in my hobby room and shut the vent but with the rest of the house on a/c, it still affects them I would guess.
Overwintering!?! That rarely happens here! Hoo Hoo Hee Hee Haa Haa!!!
Just had a Variegated Fritillary that pupated on 08/22/08 eclose today 08/27/08 !!!
That's only 5 days!!!! FIVE DAYS!!! Read it and weep folks!!! F-I-V-E!!!
Our weather has been terribly humid and hovering in the mid 90's. It's also been raining on and off for the past few days.
~ Cat
ps...nah nah boo boo on overwintering :o)
Here's the Variegated Frit I released when I got home today.
That is just not nice now....
Yah Nanny we should form some sort of protest.
Cat, you know it's not a race, right, LOL?
Protest ya say? Well, go ahead and throw snowballs at me. I ain't skeered of snow! Come on...bring it on! I got lots of sun kissed raspberries to melt that snow. Heh heh!!! :oP
Let's see...last time it snowed was in 2004 - it snowed for a few hours on Christmas Eve so we all woke up to a White Christmas with about 4 inches of accumulation. The last time we had a White Christmas was in 1895!!! (stop yer snickerin' youngin' - I wasn't around to see it back then!) As for regular snow...prior to 2004 it has snowed in February of 1967. Woohoo ROLF!!!
Mel...Heh heh...tell that to the butterflies!!! My only gloating thoughts are that it will only get better once our fall season comes around. That's our peak butterfly season. Whooohoooo!!!
~ Cat
ps...if it makes ya'll feel any better. I am originally from Illinois but moved to Texas as soon as I could...ROLF!!!
Here's the neighbor's attempt at a snowman...er...blob from 2004 :o)
You are just cruel Cat! Hehehe!
The snowman is sad, but I know what you are saying about the freak snow in that area. I was working in Houston in the early 70's when it snowed. All of the people I worked with 20 years old etc. went out on the parking lot and played like 6 year olds. It hadn't snowed there in 12 years!
Last time it snowed in Tampa was January 1977, when my older brother was just a baby and I wasn't even around. I kind of got my fill of snow when I went to college in Philly. After that, I lived in Nashville for a couple of years. When Dad and my brother came to help me move back to FL, it was February and it snowed south of Nashville. So coming up the interstate, they had to pull over so my brother could play in the snow and take pictures. Most people around here say they don't miss snow at all; I think the transplanted Northerners have the strongest anti-snow sentiment. Mom (a native Pennsylvanian) says she'd be fine if she never saw it again.
Now that is a pitiful one-eyed snowman. I like the cold... for about a week of snow skiing. but it does make those bulb flowers bloom pretty.
My b. swallowtail cats are now pupated. When I checked this morning they were all nice and green. Took them on a field trip to school to show and tell. Keeping them outside so they will hatch soon (5 days wow)...
Going to search for this cat I found this evening crawling toward my cedar sided house. Hope it is a Var. Frit. It was near my passion vines.
Hmmmm...that doesn't look like the VF cats we get here. The head, spines and color don't look the same. Moth cat? :o)
This is one eating nodding green violet. Which by the way, I tried introducing different passion vine leaves as well as violet leaves from another species and it wouldn't touch any of them!
~ Cat
ps...yeah...odd thing about the rare snowfall. We had folks 37 years old that had never seen snow before!!! The majority of the neighborhood was up and outside at around 1:00am standing around looking at the snow coming down. Uhmmm...I slept through it. Grew up playing in it in Illinois and shoveling it when I lived in Tennessee. Must say my dogs were having a blast playing in it though!
This message was edited Aug 27, 2008 10:53 PM
Hmmm. That front blew through here in 2004 also...no snow at all. It froze pretty bad for days, but no snow. It's kind of strange that there was snow across so much of the state south of us, but it just skipped over us.
My BST has started his chrysalis
Laugh all you want Shelia, you might not be laughing when Nanny and I show up on your doorstep in February with our suitcases!!!
Cute snowman!
