OMG its a butterfly!

[countryboy]

those kids get a nature education everyday, not to many kids do. nothing like country living.

 

[Wildsky]

Quote:
The exact reason we moved from a big city to the country.

 

[bizzeeb60]

Hi there. A little more education FYI. Your beautiful butterfly is a Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. They are beautiful. If you want to attract them to your yard plant a butterfly garden. Depending on where you livea few good butterfly attractors are: Scarlet Milkweed, Hibiscus, blue plumbago, Azalea, bush daisy, cape honeysuckle and Golden dewdrop.

I love taking photos of them "dancing" around the flowers.

 

[dogzrule5]

That is so COOL!

I plant fennel every year just for the Swallotail butterflies. The planst will be covered with the caterpillars, which are bright green with some stripes (black and maybe yellow).

What a great surprise!! Thanks for sharing this

 

[Wildsky]

Quote:

How can you tell its a girl -

WOW - I would have had NO CLUE !!! thats amazing!!

We get lots of different butterfly's around here - I have NO clue what they all are, but they sure are pretty - we had a few a couple of weeks ago when the plum trees and apple tree's had flowers.... other than those flowers, we only have Lilac I think.... (new around here - still seeing new stuff pop up) I planted some seeds, for Hollyhock and cone flowers, and I do believe some sunflower seeds have escaped the chickens

But those are all very tiny, no where close to flowers....

 

[Wildsky]

Quote:

This one - the caterpillar was bright orange, and I htink it had a black stripe around the neck area (neck

) it was really pretty and thats why we put it in the little bucket with hay and grass and such so the kids could look at it!

I looked on line after that trying to find pictures of the caterpillar to see what on earth it would BE - and couldn't find anything...

 

[bizzeeb60]

The female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail can be black or yellow. However the male is only black. On The black variety, the female has more pronounced almost blended together blue marks on it rear wings, than the male. You can usually find out information on butterflies on the website of your local Cooperative extension office or state college website.

 

[eggzettera]

And a new hatching addiction has pipped....
Good looking fly you have there.

 

[ZykloniaDark-GothikRanchr]

that is awesome! I love butterflies! It reminds me of the time I was in 4th grade...I found a cocoon in the tree in my front yard (lived in Tucson Arizona then) so I broke off the branch, and took it to my class for show and tell. We were so excited about it, we sat it on the window sill, and being normal kids...promptly forgot about it. a few weeks later, my teacher jumped out of his seat and started brushing off his arms and back....he paused for a moment to see what was on him, and he was covered in 1/4 inch long praying mantises!!!! that was what the cocoon was full of...hundreds of them. We rounded them all up and took them outside. Needless to say, I was not allowed to bring items of unknown origin to class anymore

 

[SpottedCrow]

LOL! What a beautiful butterfly...

Too funny, gothik...I can picture that...

I once ate a banana and it had company on it...I named him Scrunch...I never figured out what kind he was, but he pupated and changed into a moth of some sort..
I haven't touched a banana since, though.