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Euptoieta claudia - Variegated Fritillary...caterpillar and chrysalis and now a butterfly emerged!

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

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posted 4 weeks ago

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I've been looking to see if a third generation of green lynx spider has appeared in the same area as other years and found this caterpillar and then yesterday the beginnings of a chrysalis on a potted blueberry!
Quite a lot of the leaves had been eaten and there are some silks surrounding the chrysalis.

https://bugguide.net/node/view/400

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euptoieta_claudia

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

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posted 4 weeks ago

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and now, just a few hours later, the chrysalis has moved almost horizontal, tucked up under a leaf and much harder to see,

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 4 weeks ago

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...sunday

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 4 weeks ago

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...monday

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday...

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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Rather than a separate daily post with photos that don't change I decided to add a weeks worth to the above post unless there's a change in the chrysalis.

Steve said it wiggled when he spoke to it yesterday though

I haven't found a timeline for just how long this takes other than they can have four broods a year in the south?

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

May Lotito

gardener

Posts: 2014

Location: Zone 6b

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posted 3 weeks ago

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I usually see lots of fritillaries but not a single caterpillar or chrysalis. I guess I didn't look hard enough. I've seen quite a few question mark (Polygonia interrogationis) caterpillars feeding on horn beams. The chrysalis looks a lot like that of fritillary. Aren't those metallic spots amazing? I don't remember how long it takes for the butterfly to come out. It will depend on temperature and other weather conditions, but 10 days is a good guess. Wait for it!

Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

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Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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May,
This is the first chrysalis I've seen recently of any butterfly and it seems in an odd place since I've never heard fritillary caterpillars feed on blueberries?

Most of our butterflies, that I see anyway, are great spangled fritillary and pipevine and buckeye.

So, I'm still looking for my spider...maybe I'll find something else interesting!

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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is today the day?

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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these were taken about an hour after my last post!

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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and within an hour it's pumping up wings as the sun comes up over the tree tops and moved higher on the bush.

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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a few minutes later...take off!...from blueberry to lemon grass a few feet away

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 3 weeks ago

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...a few more photos from soon after emerging

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 2 weeks ago

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more information about them from the wikipedia article...

Their flight is low and swift, but even when resting or nectaring, this species is extremely difficult to approach, and, because of this, its genus name was taken from the Greek word euptoietos meaning "easily scared".

This butterfly is often found in open, disturbed habitats such as clover and alfalfa fields, pastures, fields, waste areas, roadsides, and mountain meadows.

Here is a list of some of the flowers that the variegated fritillary uses as nectar plants:

Dogbane, Apocynum species
Common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca
Asters, Aster sp.
Bearded beggarticks, Bidens aristosa
Thistles, Cirsium sp.
Coneflowers, Echinacea sp.
Fleabane, Erigeron sp.
Common boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum
Alfalfa, Medicago sativa
Red clover, Trifolium pratense
Ironweed, Vernonia sp.
Sedum, Sedum

"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 10647

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

5063

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posted 2 weeks ago

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It's just magical! thank you for capturing and sharing that Judith.

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 2 weeks ago

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thanks Nancy!
I was amazed that I was able to catch that much since I didn't know how long everything took. With more patience I see I could have caught the actual emergence but that would have meant a chair and a cup of coffee and a sun hat 🙄

Here's a couple more from this morning of what I could see was a variegated like the one in this thread (maybe the same one?) but I could not get very close so butterfly is blurry.

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

Joylynn Hardesty

master pollinator

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Location: Due to winter mortality, I stubbornly state, zone 7a Tennessee

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posted 2 weeks ago

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Very cool!

'What we do now echoes in eternity.' Marcus Aurelius
How Permies Works Dr. Redhawk's Epic Soil Series

May Lotito

gardener

Posts: 2014

Location: Zone 6b

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posted 2 weeks ago

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Certain butterflies are much faster to emerge. Once I kept a close eye on a black swallowtail chrysalis that had turn color. It was in summer morning around 8:30, sunny and calm. I was doing garden chores and came back and forth to check every few minutes. Then I saw the chrysalis wiggling a bit and the "lid" opened. Within seconds the butterfly was crawling out and starting to pump up the wrinkly wings. It happened so fast but afterwards it just stayed in one spot for hours.

Here is a zebra swallowtail. I watched the chrysalis for days only to miss the moment.

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Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

Judith Browning

Posts: 9601

Location: Ozarks zone 7 alluvial, clay/loam with few rocks 50" yearly rain

2838

posted 1 week ago

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This morning, on a tithonia bloom of course, there was a newly emerged variegated fritillary waiting for the sun...in an hour or so it flew off and has been at all the flowers on that same bush for awhile now.
I have looked for the remnants of a chrysalis but no luck so far.

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"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young

I hired a bunch of ninjas. The fridge is empty, but I can't find them to tell them the mission.

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