Tag Archives: Willow

HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MALE AND FEMALE TIGER SWALLOWTAIL

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Tigers on the prowl in our garden!

It’s very easy to see the difference between a male and female Tiger Swallowtail.

The female Tiger Swallowtail’s tail end of her lower wings are more vividly colored, with strongly pronounced cells of orange and a greater degree of iridescent blue.

Female Tiger Swallowtail drinking nectar from Phlox

Male Tiger Swallowtail. Note the very dark border along the tail end of the male TS lower wings, with very little blue iridescent scales

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail utilizes a large variety of host plants, mostly trees, such as wild black cherry, tulip tree, sweet bay (magnolia), cottonwood, ash, birch, and willow.

Please consider making a tax deductible donation, or becoming an underwriter, to bring our Monarch Butterfly documentary Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly to American Public Television. To Learn More go here and to DONATE go here. Thank you!

 

 

THE AGE OF WONDER

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I gave Charlotte a terrarium and a Cecropia Moth caterpillar of her own.

Meet Genevieve. She has been kissed, hand fed leaves, and has had the Bernstein Bears Go to the Moon read to her several times this afternoon <3

What Charlotte’s caterpillar will become (next summer)

Grow Native!

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I love this handy chart that features a number of common butterflies we see in New England, and thought you would, too

Nectar plants are wonderful to attract butterflies to your garden, but if you want butterflies to colonize your garden, you need to plant their caterpillar host (food) plants. We all know Common Milkweed and Marsh Milkweed are the best host plants for Monarchs, and here are a few more suggestions. When you plant, they will come! And you will have the wonderful added benefit of watching their life cycle unfold.

Monarchs are dependent upon milkweeds during every stage of their life cycle. Milkweeds are not only their caterpillar food, it provides nectar to myriad species of pollinators.

Cecropia Moth Cats

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https://www.instagram.com/p/BIXa1mEj3et/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIVzkOLjfjY/

Don’t you love the colors of the third stage, or instar, of the Cecropia Moth caterpillar? Only about an inch and a half long in the photo, in the final fifth instar, before it pupates into a cocoon, the caterpillar will be as large as a large man’s thumb.

Cecropia moth Caterpilla mid instar. copyright Kim SmithIn its second instar in the above photo, the caterpillar resembles the developing birch flower catkins. This is an evolutionary form of mimicry against predation by birds. Cecropia Moth caterpillars eat not only the foliage of American White Birch trees, but also other species of birch trees, apple, ash, beech, elm, lilac, maple, poplar, Prunus and Ribes species, white oak, and willow.

Cecropia Moth caterpillar early instar copyright Kim SmithFirst instar Cecropia Moth Caterpillars

Thank you so much again to my friend Christine for the gift of the Cecropia moth eggs.