Who am I? (caterpillar)
 

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...wannabe002.jpg
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...wannabe003.jpg

I'm eating Izzie's pansies. They're delicious!

She picked off all my siblings back when they were teeny, but missed me until I got big like this. I'm super stealthy.
I'm almost an inch long now!

Izzie's wondering what I am though, and I can't seem to remember- can anyone help this poor hominid out?

PS. she thinks I might be a Fritillary Butterfly caterpillar.

Actually, she thinks I might be a Diana Fritillary, since I'm chowing down on a member of the violet family.
Diana Fritillary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Found another page, hmmmmm.
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/cwcs/pdf/DianaFritillary.pdf

I think you might be right, Izzie. I have Fritillary butterfly's because they're attracted to my Passiflora. Their caterpillars look similar to your photos.

Here's an eco-friendly solution: Place a bird bath and bird feeder near the infested plants and this will encourage birds to feed on the caterpillars.:)

:cheer: sweet!
We do have lots of birdfeeders and a bath- but at the opposite end of the house!

I don't mind this one, and the pansies are on their way out.

They pupate in the leaf litter around their host plants, which might be a problem, since there's nothing but dirt in that pot. I'm thinking of hunting down some leaves to see if I can help the poor guy- apparently the use of BT insecticides for gypsy moths has hurt the population some.

If you're in florida, I wonder if you have the Gulf Fritillary, since it's attracted to your passiflora?

haha - you're like me Izzie - I don't want the caterpillars chowing on my orchids, so I toss them into other plants lol. I like having butterflies and moths, so as long as there isn't an infestation I really don't want to kill the caterpillars. Not to mention there are frogs and lizards around, so I don't like using pesticides.

I suppose I'm lucky in that I don't have to worry about lizards and frogs- only birds! and most of them don't wander into our little patio, but we have busy feeders on the trees just outside.
I can't wait to have an actual house someday!

Mine are Gulf Fritillaries and their host plant is the Passiflora. They visit and sometimes roost in the shade house but they've never harmed the chids.

So where do they pupate for you? Do you know?

That's not working for me :(

I have a gooseberry bush which keeps getting destroyed every year by Cabbage White cattapillers (but poor bush tries again each year). The bird bath and bird feeder is almost directly above it and the birds just don't seem interested in the grubs on the bush.

This spring I picked 60+ catapillers off by hand (it's not even a very big gooseberry bush) and I keep finding odd ones every time I check. So far this year it's looking OK but I think I will just have to keep them down by hand as those stupid birds aren't doing it for me :evil:

:shock: I don't think I could deal with that many. Maybe if I had gloves on. and a pressure sprayer and some bird-friendly poison.


:D Found four other big guys that I missed- they are now equally distributed among the pots (these are in huge bowl planters).

Crossing fingers that they'll grow and pupate!
Need to hunt down leaf litter....