Autumn Days

The Frostweed (Verbesina virginica) is blooming at the end of October and one month into autumn. It's known as frostweed because with the first winter freezes, the stems will exude water that freezes into beautiful shapes.

Here's a photo of the white blooms with four butterflies and a bee enjoying the offering. The plants grow to about 4 feet high. It's interesting that we still have butterflies so late in the year. I think the only time we don't see them is in the deepest part of winter.

Since it's so close to Halloween, I thought I'd share a part of our woods which I thought looked a bit spooky today.

Monarch Butterflies!

The Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus) emerged from their chrysalises on Thurday this week. I didn't get to see them do it and that's somewhat disappointing, but maybe I'll be lucky next time. It's nonetheless a thrill to look in the aquarium and see them fluttering about when there was no visible activity before.

I thought the transformation would take about 2 weeks but it seems to have happened a little faster at 12 days. The rate is temperature-dependent so maybe it was warmer and it went faster than the 2 weeks the references state.

The empty and no longer colorful chrysalis.

I was normally checking them when I got home in the afternoon, but I was out of town on Wednesday, so I didn't get a chance. When I got home Thursday, they were already out. Their wings were fully extended and they looked ready to fly. We didn't put a cover on the aquarium since we weren't trying to keep them. We just wanted to observe their transformations.

Both butterflies emerged! A 100% success rate!

When Mary got home a few hours later, they were gone.

My friend, Mike Cseri, says they'll return next year, so we have something to look forward to.

True Monarchs

I posted last year about finding what I thought was a Monarch (Danaus plexippus) caterpillar only to discover it was actually a closely-related Queen (Danaus gilippus). You can find that post here.

When I came home on Monday this week, I was walking to the house from the garage and looking at the Antelope Horns (Asclepias asperula) growing along the edge. This plant is a member of the milkweed family and is a food source for Monarch caterpillars. Antelope Horns are plentiful this year even though we haven't had much rain. I've been checking them every time I see one, hoping to find a Monarch caterpillar.

Sure enough, I spotted a plant that had white fluid leaking from the stem where something had eaten a leaf completely off. I bent down to take a closer look and was rewarded with a view of a small caterpillar. I ran into the house and got my camera. I sent the photo to my friend and Monarch expert, Mike Cseri. He's the one that told me last year that the caterpillar I had then was not a Monarch. This time his response was positive - it was a Monarch!

A Monarch caterpillar on Antelope Horn leaves. The caterpillar's head as at the bottom

Not wanting to disturb the caterpillar, Mary and I dug up another Antelope Horn and put it a small pot and placed the pot in an unused aquarium. I then broke off the branch the caterpillar was on and placed it on top of the potted Antelope Horn.

The Monarch's new home. The caterpillar is in the upper center of the photo.

Two days later, Mary found another one! We put it on the same Antelope Horn in the aquarium. Mike told me that judging from their size, it could be about 1 to 2 weeks before they started to pupate. The chrysalis is also known as a pupa. These must have been further along, and of course Mike only had photographs from which to estimate.

When I checked them on Friday evening, they had both attached themselves to a Antelope Horn stem and were hanging in a J-shape. They spun a bit of silk and used that to attach to the stem, so they hang upside down. They also develop a greenish tinge near the head. It's interesting that although we found the two caterpillars in different parts of the yard, they were about the same age since they pupated at the same time.

Ready to start the transformation.

I didn't realize the transformation would happen so quickly. When I checked them at noon Saturday, they were both already in chrysalis form! It's truly amazing that they underwent such a complete transformation in such a short amount of time. Basically, their entire body is dissolved and then rebuilt into a butterfly within the chrysalis.

The chrysalis or pupa.

The caterpillar stage lasts about 2 weeks, so they must have been in our yard for a while before we saw them. The chrysalis stage also lasts about 2 weeks, so I'm going to keep watch and hope to capture the butterfly's emergence.

The Monarch Watch has more information about this fascinating butterfly.

The Painted Ladies Emerge

I helped Mary deliver her classroom's cage holding the Painted Ladies for the Butterfly Festival to the EmilyAnn Theatre on Friday. There were many cages there so it looked like the Festival was going to be a big success.

Of the 15 caterpillars in Mary's cage, 13 had completed the metamorphosis. One chrysalis didn't make it. It was dry and dead-looking. The remaining chrysalis was the the late-starter, so there's a chance it might still produce a butterfly.

Here's a photo of the butterflies in the cage sitting on a picnic table at home. The late-starter chrysalis is in the bottom-left and you can see the cotton balls soaked in Gatorade in the dish to feed the butterflies. The Painted Ladies have a blue and gray/green wing bottom. The wing top is hard to see because when resting they hold their wings straight up and together. The wing top is orange and black.

Here are two at the feeding dish. They're small - about 1.5 inches long and they don't sit still for long.

I spoke to Melinda Seib who is a fellow Hays County Master Naturalist and also serves on the Board of Directors of the Theatre. She is in charge of the Caterpillar Camp and Cages for Classrooms projects.

She said the Cages for Classrooms had delivered 135 cages to the community. 104 cages were placed in classrooms and Master Naturalists made 53 care-giving instructions and butterfly life cycle education presentations to the students. A total of 1060 students heard presentations!

In addition, 24 teachers in the schools were given the care instructions and life cycle presentations and an educational packet prepared by Master Naturalists. 58 other individuals, educators and businesses received a similar presentation. A grand total of 1140 children and individuals received the Master Naturalist presentations in our community.

That's a great outcome. It's why we support and volunteer for this project. It's a great opportunity to reach and educate children and also adults about the butterfly life cycle which can lead to more interest and science and conservation.

The Painted Ladies at Caterpillar Camp

It kind of sounds like a western. We saw the Painted Ladies at Caterpillar Camp last week. It wasn't a movie and the painted ladies weren't working.

We volunteered at the EmilyAnn Theatre and Garden's Caterpillar Camp to help them prepare for this year's 13th Annual Butterfly Festival. The EmilyAnn Theatre was founded in 1998 by Ann and Norm Rolling to celebrate the life of their daughter, Emily Ann, who lost her life in a car accident. It has since expanded to include a series of natural areas, trails, and gardens. The centerpiece of the Butterfly Festival is the live release, every thirty minutes, of hundreds of butterflies. It's a great, fun event. You should check it out. This year it's on Saturday, April 16th.

That's where Caterpillar Camp comes in. As part of our Master Naturalist volunteer work, Mary and I have been helping at Caterpillar Camp for several years. The work involves placing approximately 2500 Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) caterpillars in containers with their food, in preparation for raising them into butterflies and releasing them at the Butterfly Festival. Painted Ladies are the caterpillar of choice because they are relatively easy-going about what they eat and are easy to raise in captivity. They occur naturally in the area as they regularly migrate through.

Caterpillar Camp volunteers preparing containers

The containers are small clear plastic tubs, with lids. They look like what you might use to take catsup or tartar sauce out of a fast-food restaurant. We smear a small amount of a dough-like food on the sides of the container. The bottom is left clear to allow the caterpillar droppings to accumulate. We then coax, with a small paintbrush, a single caterpillar out of another container holding dozens of them into the prepared container. The containers are then placed in cages and distributed to schools and businesses throughout the area. You can see the workers wearing gloves to minimize contamination. The caterpillar are susceptible to bacterial diseases. Even with about 30 volunteers the work took about 5 hours. The distribution team is called Cages for Classrooms and is also one of our Master Naturalist volunteer projects.

Last year, the Cages for Classrooms team delivered 40 cages to pre-K, elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. They also made presentations to 800-1000 students on the life cycle of butterflies and the care of the caterpillars. In addition, 67 cages were delivered to individuals and other groups throughout Hays County, reaching over 100 adults and children. These cages provided awareness, education, and outreach to the public.

Mary's classroom cage

Mary has a cage in her classroom, holding 15 caterpillars. You can see the small containers sitting on the bottom of the cage. The cage needs to be relatively large so it can comfortably hold the 15 butterflies.

After one week, all but one of the caterpillars have formed their chrysalis. They climb to the top of the container and attach themselves to the lid and then enter their chrysalis stage. Here's the one which is still in caterpillar form.

The late bloomer

You can tell he's getting ready to transform because he's on the lid. You can also see that they've eaten almost all the food. The sides of the containers were coated with the food. The caterpillars were only about 1/4 inch long a week ago. They've done nothing (well almost nothing) but eat since then.

Their development rate is very temperature-dependent. The hotter it is, the faster they develop. Caterpillars have exoskeletons, just like all insects. You normally don't think of that because they're soft and squishy. In order to grow they have to shed the exoskeleton and form a new one. Each stage of this development is called an instar. Painted Ladies normally go through 5 instars. These started a little larger than we've seen before, maybe at the third instar, because the date of Caterpillar Camp was so close to the Butterfly Festival, on April 16th. The timing of all this is actually pretty tricky and it has to be right or there won't be 2500 butterflies at the Festival.

Here's one that has formed the chrysalis. They are about the same size as the caterpillar but are hard and smooth. They hang from the lid by a thread. When they've all transformed, Mary will remove the lids and move them, with the chrysalis' hanging on, to a wire rack where they will wait for the final metamorphosis.

Ready to go

They should emerge as adult Painted Lady butterflies in about 10-12 days, just in time for the Butterfly Festival.

A Visit From A Queen

I was checking our chickens for eggs and to give them water when I noticed this caterpillar very near their coop.

It was feeding on an antelope horn which is a native plant and very common on our property. It is a member of the milkweed family, so I immediately thought it was a Monarch caterpillar which I know feed exclusively on milkweed. You can see in the photo that it's been chewing its way down the plant. The upper leaves are completely gone and you can see the white milky fluid, which gives the family its name, leaking out. The caterpillar is about 1 inch long.

I showed the photo to a friend of mine, Mike Cseri, who is my local expert on Monarchs. He's participated in the Monarch Watch and has raised Monarch butterflies from eggs. He took one look and said "That's not a Monarch!". I said "Are you sure?". I should know better than to question an expert.

He pointed out that the caterpillar has six "antenna" and that Monarchs only have four. The appendages are not really antenna, but they do function as touch sense organs. Monarchs have four, two at the front and two at the back. This caterpillar has 6 antenna, the extra pair are along the body, nearer to the head. He didn't know what it was, but was positive it wasn't a Monarch.

This started a frantic search on the Internet to try to identify the caterpillar. I finally came across photos of a Queen caterpillar which looked like a match. Mike reviewed them and agrees. Queen Butterflies also live in the area, eat milkweed and are closely related to Monarchs.

Both of these butterflies' caterpillars have an interesting and exclusive diet. Milkweed is poisonous, but the caterpillars are able to consume vast quantities of it in preparation for their metamorphosis into the adult form. Not only have they evolved protection against the poison, but they sequester the chemicals into their body and use it as a defense against predators. It's thought that the bright colors of the larva and adults serve as warnings to predators.

I noticed when I let our chickens out to roam our yard and feed on whatever they could find, mainly grasshoppers, they did not eat the Queen caterpillar even though they walked right by it. Perhaps the warning signs were working.