ARISTOLOCHIA GRANDIFLORA

My colleagues planted out these Aristolochia grandiflora (common name: Pelican Flower) from the Aristolochiaceae Family as the host plant for the Common Birdwing and Common Rose butterflies and it looked like their efforts paid off.

The Common Rose caterpillars were found on this plant, happily munching away at its leaves. The gigantic unopened flower reminds me of an internal body organ and the opened flowers are simply amazing and attracts some insects with its "black hole".

DURANTA ERECTA & COMMON ROSE

I really love this photo very much. It was taken from inside the Butterfly Garden enclosure.

The Common Rose butterfly and Duranta were in focus and the Ixora 'Super Pink' in the background added some colour to the photo. Beautiful!

DEATH

Yes, when I went back the next day, I realized that the Common Birdwing pupa was dead. Just look at the decapitated carcass left on the Aristolochia acuminata.

In addition, the Common Rose pupa was nowhere to be seen.

What was obvious was that some pruning was done and some of the branches were removed. In the process, the unsuspecting worker might have ripped the Common Birdwing pupa into two and remove the Common Rose pupa without their knowledge.

Sigh, it was a sad day.

CATERPILLARS & PUPAE

These were taken over 2 days but my joy was shortlived. I will get to this again in another post.

On those 2 days, I saw at least 8 Common Rose cats on these straggly stands of Aristolochia acuminata. Like my colleague said yesterday, it is the Common Rose season again. Anyway, there were these beautiful Common Birdwing and Common Rose pupae and I reminded myself to come back and check on them frequently.

There were 2 lizards hanging around, presumably to feed on some of them or the other insects e.g. ants.

I left knowing that all was not lost since these beautiful creatures were flourishing in this area with our planting of their host plants.