Operation: Gulf Fritillary

[Kevinator]

Here's how it started:

April 2012: I managed to get my hands on a few caterpillars and decided to try to breed the upcoming adults. I set up a shelter with bird mesh that was 10ft. by 10ft. by 8ft. I filled it with nectar plants favored by the species and a passionvine (Blue Bouquet to be exact). Two of the caterpillars died, one from cannibalism, the other from a "hunger strike". The remaining four made the journey to adulthood.


May 2012: One of the butterflies escaped through the mesh. Yeah it was miserable since it took one month to make the enclosure. I didn't know that they could escape through holes half their size! Anyway, I ordered one of those mosquito mesh covers for beds and hung it from the top of the shelter. I put all the plants in and hung the chrysalises inside a temporary enclosure. Once they hatched, I put them inside the "tent". Sadly, they didn't breed for two weeks so i let them go.


August 2012: After my trip back to China, I thought the project has ended. I was then caught by a surprise. My father told me that he collected ten caterpillars on our passionvine outside the tent. I couldn't believe it! The caterpillars then were moved into the tent and all of them made it. This time, they did breed. I got eggs everywhere on my rampant passionvine and they hatched!

Now: The third generation of gulf fritillaries are now chrysalids. The neighborhood is full of orange and silver butterflies. Every day, a butterfly that I proudly raised comes over into our garden and dances over our lawn. Most of the nectar plants have died and the Santa Anna winds are coming. I am desperately trying to find a very stable greenhouse to house the critters and the plants. This project is too successful to restart again next year.

Hope this report helps others to start a breeding program!
-Kevinator

[silken]

Very interesting! I love butterflies. Thanks for sharing and good luck with the plants and critters.

[nenella]

WOW! That's a fantastic way to help a part of nature & an excellent project! Thanks for sharing and I wish you the very best!
Good Luck! and do keep updating.
As said above, it is a very interesting subject!

[WhiteRabbit]

Very cool! I have one small passion vine. Gets a number if frittillary caterpillars every year ( they usually manage to eat every last leaf!). I've enjoyed seeing the butterflies around

[RosieC]

Really cool, glad to hear you had such success

I've moved your post to the Off topic section because the projects area is for our board organised orchid projects. Hopefully more people will see it here as the projects area is so full of stickies it's easy to miss other posts.

[merkity]

When I lived in Pittsburg - i planted a passion vine. the vine went up my deck and hung down from the edge like a curtain - we let it grow and grow - it survived winters just fine. after it got to its super huge size - we noticed the butterflies...it started out small and by the second year we had butterfiles, caterpillars and chrysalis everywhere. They were the orange and black gulf fritillary. you could find them in every stage all over the vine. we even had a birds next in the vine. the plant when we left it behind had gone under the lawn about ten feet, and out the other side - up the tree across the yard -i had no need for netting of any sort, the butterflies simply came back each year. i would look outside about 10ish and mid to late afternoon and see somewhere around 30 butterflies all darting around the vine.