BUTTERFLIES R US & MORE

14 ZEBRAS ON A BRANCH

2007-11-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

Around 7AM I spotted these Zebras clumped sleeping together on a dead palm bloom. They love this one woodsy area of my yard and seem to prefer dead branches--must not be slippery. The temperatures dipped in the 50s. Maybe they are cold.

I love these little guys.

A DAY IN JUPITER

2007-11-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

ZEBRA CATS
I counted ten Zebra cats on this little milkweed plant, and they ravished every leaf, but the plant didn't die, and the leaves grew right back.

MALACHITE BUTTERFLY

SLEEPY TOAD
The temperature dipped into the sixties, and this toad decided to take a nap. I'd flashed ten pictures right in his face, and had to touch him to get him to move this much.

BUSY BUMBLE BEES

DRAGONFLIES GALORE - ODONATA

2007-09-30T22:51:00.001-07:00

Common Green Darner

Wandering Gildercrop

HAMMOCK SKIPPER

2007-09-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Looks like someone took a bite out of this little guy's tail. Beautiful blue body.

BROWN ANOLE LIZARD

2007-09-29T21:55:00.001-07:00

Lookin' for love in all the right places, or rather a lovely mate. Can't say I know the inner romantic machinations of a lizard's heart.

I was lucky to catch his sexy, red flaring neck--sexy to a female anole. The red fan signals "Come hither" in lizard language.

LARGE ORANGE SULPHUR

2007-09-29T21:47:00.001-07:00

ZEBRA HELICONIUS BEATING WINGS

2007-09-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Is this adult Zebra drying wings, activating pheromones, signaling for mates, or all of the above?

At any time of day, dozens of these Zebra Longwings are luxuriously fluttering around the yard near their favorite spots. Zebras are considered to be brainy butterflies; Heliconius being the only known butterfly species to eat pollen. They live 4 to 6 months and forage along the same route every day, as if following a trapline.

Their caterpillars feed on Passion Vine (Passiflora) and milkweed, plants that produces cyanide from which they derive their nasty taste--a neat trick to keep the birds from snacking on them--hence their leisurely flight.

Clouded Sulphurs must fly erratic, streaking straight up and criss-crossing the sky in a yellow blur to avoid being lunch for a Scrub Jay, but Zebras sip their nectar and nibble on pollen like lazy tourists nursing a daiquiri.
CR

PASSIONATE BUTTERFLIES

2007-09-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

The Passion Vine (Passiflora) is the food plant for the caterpillars of the Gulf Fritillary and the Zebra Longwing (Heliconian).

I have two types of Passion Vine. This frilly one always has Zebras hovering nearby.

The caterpillars of the tropical butterfly Heliconius sara eat nothing but passion vines, which means they should be dead.

That’s because the leaves of these vines have evolved
powerful pesticides called cyanogens, chemicals that can release hydrogen cyanide gas. (I have noted Zebra cats on milkweed, another poison plant.)

This less frilly one has a unique perfume - very odiferous.

To our knowledge, this is the first example of an insect that is able to metabolize cyanogens,” say Helen S. ENgler of the university of Texas at Austin and her colleagues. In the July 13 NATURE, they outline how such a daredevil diet can be possible.

The passion vines, in the genus Passiflora, contain cyanogenic glycosides – essentially sugar compounds hitched to a cyanide group. In the plant, the compounds lie harmlessly in one cellular compartment while an enzyme whose action releases the poison lies in another. When the average leaf-chomping marauder bites down, the compartments burst and their contents mix. Too bad for the marauder.

Analyses of the cyanide-related compounds in both vines and the H. sara caterpillars, however, revealed that caterpillar enzymes prevent the release of poison gas. The caterpillars switch a harmless sulfur-based chemical construct, or thiol, into the place of the cyanide group, thereby inactivating the cyanogen.

Plants still can fight back, according to study coauthor Lawrence E. Gilbert, also of Texas. Some passion vines grow hooked hairs that can impale a caterpillar.

How Butterflies Can Eat Cyanide

GULF FRITILLARY

2007-09-24T20:17:00.001-07:00

ROSEATE SKIMMER DRAGONFLY

2007-09-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

WHITE PEACOCK

2007-09-24T20:09:00.001-07:00

JULIA DRYAS IULIA

2007-09-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

GIANT SWALLOWTAIL

2007-09-24T18:37:00.001-07:00

SOUTHERN BROKEN-DASH SKIPPER

2007-09-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

CLOUDED SULPHUR

2007-09-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

ZEBRA LONGWING

2007-09-24T15:00:00.000-07:00