LIME BUTTERFLY

I haven't seen a Lime Butterfly for a while, so this was really a pleasant surprise. Interestingly, it settled onto my Plumbago capensis.

ERYTHROCHITON BRASILIENSIS

From the Family Rutaceae which includes plants such as the Lime plant, I am not familiar with this monopodial-looking plant at all. In fact, it reminds me of a plant that I learnt not long ago - the Archidendron.

the small white flowers and orange fruits

HOUSEPLANTS

I couldn't stand the unkempt peacock-like Plumbago anymore and decided to give it an extreme haircut. I headed back the entire plant so it was almost leafless. 

As for the Lime plant, it has grown considerably taller but didn't seem to attract anymore Lime Butterflies and instead hosted so many white flies, so I brought it to the garden.

The Periwinkle was also suffering from the drying effects of the current weather and it's almost bare stems hung limplessly over the wall. So I had to prune back most of its stems. If it's not recovering, which I thought so, then I would harvest the seeds and chuck the plant away to make room for the younger seedlings.

Finally, the variegated Aptenia grew so much but there were only a handful of flowers and a number of scales pests. I suspected it took up a lot of my soil fertilizer nutrients. I ended up collecting more than a kilogram of it and brought it to the garden for planting. 

The straggly Periwinkle

The variegated Aptenia cordifolia

LIME

I haven't seen the Lime caterpillars for a long time now but recently it was back. Just a few days ago, I counted at least 5 caterpillars on this plant and I am giving myself a few more days before I succumbed to the temptation of removing all the caterpillars.

LIME PUPA

Yesterday morning, I noticed the remaining lime pupa took on a transparency look and I could make out the beautiful colours of the wings inside the case. This is a sign that the pupa is eclosing soon. I made it a point to check every day for these 2 days because I knew the adult butterfly would be coming out soon.

With that, I left for work.

By yesterday evening when I came back, what was left behind was just an empty pupa case.

I hope this butterfly has better luck than the recent one with deformed wings and I hope it flew off in search of a mate to continue the journey for the rest of its short life.

LIME BUTTERFLY

When I opened the door, I found this little fella (scientific name: Papilio demoleus) on the ground beside my potted plants. Part of the wings looked distorted and I suspect the wings were deformed during eclosion or when it dropped to the ground.

This was probably one of those caterpillars that I posted recently and attained adult form. Poor thing. It seemed that it would not be able to fly, much less fly well. So I placed it on the Lime Plant on my way out.

Sadly, after I came back, it was no longer there. Maybe it flew off or maybe it dropped down the high floors to its end. Anyway, I am always so amazed by the wing patterns that are just so irresistibly pretty.

LIME CATS

I found one cat below the pot of Lime Plant yesterday morning. It has started to pupate and by evening it was already in the pupal stage.

There was one more cat left on the plant which was almost completely defoliated as shown in the photo. I also found an abandoned pupa case at the base of the plant.

This morning, I took the photo of the same cat which pupated yesterday. It is amazing how fast they grow.

LIME CATS

On 13 Nov 10, I found 2 small Lime Butterfly (scientific name: Papilio demoleus) caterpillars on one of my Citrus aurantifolia (common name: Key Lime) plants with several eggs. A couple of days later, they grew much bigger and I transferred them to a bigger plant. Then I counted 6 more young caterpillars.

The young cats do look very much like bird droppings and that is how they prevent themselves from being eaten by higher predators like birds. However, they are really voracious eating machines that devour a whole lot of leaves and I am always amazed by how fast they can grow in a single day. I find it very amazing that despite me watching them so closely, they were able to develop from one instar to another distinctly different instar within a matter of hours with me failing to see the gradual transition.

Just a few days ago, I transferred 5 of the 6 cats to the bigger host plant and by then, the 2 earlier cats were no longer present. One of my peeves about the cats is that they always crawl elsewhere to pupate and I lose track of them after that. I would love to watch the pupation process and the eclosion, but unless I deliberately transfer the 5th instar to a container, I never get to see the pupa and eclosion.

Today, there were only 2 cats left in their final instars. Soon, they would be gone too but I certainly hope that of the 8 that developed, some would come back and visit the nectar plants I planted for them and lay their eggs on the host plants to start off a new breeding cycle.

CITRUS AURANTIFOLIA

I bought this Common Lime (Family: Rutaceae) plant for one purpose and one purpose only. I didn't buy it to harvest the limes but bought it to feed the Lime Butterfly caterpillars.

This plant is almost defoliated completely because the females kept coming to lay their eggs and the caterpillars kept growing, one after another. To me, that is a good sign. But the irritating thing is I never get to see the caterpillars pupate. The Lime Butterfly caterpillars have a habit of hiding very well from predators when they pupate and I could never find them.

I only get to see their fras. Spotting the fras is the first step towards finding them, especially when their green bodies camouflage very well amongst the green leaves.

LIME

These photos were taken on 31 Jul 10, the last day of July.

The highlight of this post is not on the Lime Plant. The attention was meant to be focussed on the Lime Butterfly's caterpillar. Or rather, the difficulty in spotting it amongst the mass of green leaves.

But if one looks carefully, it would not be hard to find it in the first photo. I always have so much fun counting the number of caterpillars and trying to find them on the plant day after day. It is like a caterpillar treasure hunt.

The only thing that annoys me to no end when it comes to the Lime Butterfly's caterpillar is every time when it pupates, it doesn't do so on the plant and really goes into hiding! I couldn't find it almost every single time and this is irritating because I want to partake in its eclosion into the adult butterfly if I can. I want to see it struggle free from its pupa case and watch its wings inflate over time and enjoy the beautiful emergence of a new life. And I would welcome the females to return to my 2 plants to lay their eggs after they find their mates, anytime.

BUTTERFLIES

Everything I go to the Native Garden, I would drop by the Butterfly Garden because they are located next to each other. So these photos were also taken on 19 May 10.

I never really know the Lime Butterfly until I worked on this project. Since then, I love it so much. The wing design patterns are just so spectacular and I am happy that it is the most common urban butterfly. Occasionally, I see it laying eggs on my lime plants and have caterpillars to watch frequently. However, recently I have not seen any caterpillars for a while even though I now have 2 lime plants. I hope the adult butterflies come soon.

The other big butterfly that was successfully bred in the BG was the Tree Nymph. Its black and white beauty is so clean and classic. The ones in the attached photos look so pristine, so they must have eclosed only recently. Even in the animal kingdom, some animals are very clear and everything is in black and white and have no shades of grey in between. Visitors never fail to be in awe of this butterfly because of its size and slow clumsy flight. Unfortunately, it is not a native butterfly.