What’s Flying? - November

The end of October brought some unexpected but welcome rain as the remnants of Hurricane Rina drifted over Florida and our first real cold fronts of the season arrived. The gardens are full of fall color, like Winter Cassia, Muhly Grass, Saltbush, and Beautyberry. Butterfly numbers remain high, although the variety of species has dwindled somewhat. As long as nectar plants are flowering, though, butterflies will be around, so November is still a great month for spotting them in the MOSI gardens. Here’s what we’ve been seeing recently:

Gulf Fritillary

Cloudless Sulphur

Orange Barred Sulphur

Sleepy Orange

Spicebush Swallowtail

Polydamas Swallowtail

Pipevine Swallowtail

Monarch

Duskywing

Tropical Checker Spot

Long Tailed Skipper

Blues

Fiery Skipper

White Peacock

Gray Hairstreak

Buckeye

Zebra Longwing

Barred Yellow

Tiger Swallowtail (Female)

Notes From the Field:

• We were quite startled to see a lone Buckeye (Junonia coenia) one afternoon, as this is a butterfly we usually associate with spring here in Central Florida. The colder weather up north must have driven this one down a little early this year.
• Skippers continue to be super-abundant, both in caterpillar and adult form. The Desmodium tortuosum is just about done for the season as a host plant, but the Creeping Beggarweed (Desmodium incanum) is still going strong.
• The Tiger Swallowtail we caught recently was easily identifiable as a female, since in Florida they generally appear in a black form that mimics the Pipevine Swallowtail. Tiger Swallowtails should become more common during the cooler months ahead.
• The amount of small butterflies of the Blue family has skyrocketed recently. They can often be seen in small “clouds” around plumbago, where they both nectar from the flowers and lay eggs for their caterpillars. Sulphurs are also very common, and as the cassia is now in bloom, their caterpillars have begun to turn a fun fluorescent yellow (as shown above).
• Our Imperial Moth eggs have hatched in the lab and the caterpillars are happily eating Longleaf Pine. At about .75 inches long, they are still quite a ways from being full size, but their branched setae are fascinating nonetheless.