#catepillars

I found him under my shoe and gave him a little sweater

Pictures of Caterpillars who look Very Scary or Very Creepy follow, so if you don't have the tag "Catepillars" or "insects" filtered I would scroll past this.

Want a great example of why it's so important to plant native host plants and not use pesticides in your garden?

We grow tons of native plants in our garden, including native passionflowers, and we have for years, since they're perennials. We started a fresh batch of seedlings this year in the new garden area from seeds we saved last year and one particular seedling has taken of like there's no tomorrow - it is easily 5 times the size of all of the other plants, including the established ones!

And it has single-handedly been a host for probably a few hundred caterpillars of two different native species in just this single season, and it wasn't even started in early spring or anything.

Here's some pictures of all the little baby caterpillars, including pictures of one that is much more rare to see in our area -- until now that is!!

Gulf Fritillary butterflies are common in our area, and even people who don't garden are used to seeing them around, but much more rare to see are Zebra Longwings, and thanks to this one single, extremely vigourous seedling in particular, we've helped support a few hundred of them this year and more and more people in the surrounding neighborhood are starting to see them in their own yards !

Usually, each year, we'd get maybe a few dozen Gulf Fritillary caterpillars-- the ones who have orange bodies and black spikes; but this year, it started with just one Zebra Longwing laying eggs... and now multiple generations have all been supported on this single plant, starting out as teeny tiny eggs, then teeny tiny white catepillars, until they're huge and dramatic looking bright-white catepillars that look like they're from an alien planet, then they turn into creepy, dramatic, dark brown and spiky chrysalises..

... and then they turn into gorgeous black and yellow butterflies :D

I've included a little collection of pictures below, including

what the plant itself looks like when it's not blooming,

the sheer number of native catepillars on the passion flower,

what the Zebra Longwing chrysalis looks like,

Adult butterflies of both species

Another native passionflower leaf (passiflora lutea), which in our area is naturally varigated (not sure if its a subspecies or not??)

last but not least, three examples of Passiflora Incarnata blooms, one of these is the parent of the Extremely Vigorous Seedling (EVS) all these catepillars are on, and I am excited to see what the flowers look like on the EVS when it eventually flowers.