Congratulations! Again I am jealous of you Miss Sherry. I love raising QMs. They are such a neat caterpillar and pretty chrysalis. I will be putting my hops vines out this spring and hope to see some.
Good luck with the young'ns.
Cheers,
Elisabeth

Yipee! I'm betting you'll be able to find a whole cluster of eggs -- QMs are like that.

If you get a lot, I'd be curious to find your proportion of gray v. tan underwings. I had some of each last year, with (I think) the same mom.

Jeff

Hmmmmmm, I don't think I've ever raised any with tan underwings, Jeff, unless the winter forms I raised were tan underneath. It's been so long since I've raised any, they may have been tan, and I've just forgotten. They were orange all over on the top. I'll check and see if I have a picture of the undersides of a fall/winter form -
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Whoa - this fall/winter form picture shows the tan undersides! The summer forms - like the female that laid eggs today - were all gray underneath. 'Just shows you how long it's been since I've raised any!
I also remember having a batch one year in late summer or early fall where half were solid orange on top, and the other half had dark hindwings on the topsides. Interesting!
I'll take care of the young'uns, Elisabeth. My old country Daddy used to call the four of us the young'uns, and my town raised mother used to laugh about it! :)
Sherry

I haven't seen any QMs this year for sure. I saw one butterfly that whisked by me so fast, I couldn't be positive. It's unusual for me not to see any because they often overwinter here in OKC.

Elisabeth, I have Hops vine, too, but have yet to find either Red Admirals or Question Marks on it. The QMs much prefer the Elm saplings around the house, and have found one group on Hackberry, and one cat on False Nettle.

I am still impressed by the way the QMs stack their eggs. Like they are little "spacemaker" machines! It makes them very easy to ID. They are one of the easiest caterpillars to raise, too.

I have HE and TE cats pupating right now, so I should have a good crop of them at the fruit feeder before long.

Susan

HE and TE ... scanning ... scanning ... feeds on fruit ... scanning ...

File not found. Abort, Retry, Fail? R

... scanning ... scanning ...

Hackberry and Tawny Emperors. Ah.

C:\>

Jeff, you're an absolute hoot! ;()

Susan

Love the shape of the eggs. Nice photo!

randy

Thanks, Randy!
Look what I found when I was out in the garden earlier today checking on the QM eggs on the false nettles -
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The false nettles in my garden have never been used by either QMs or RAs, and now they both use the same little plant - 'makes me wonder what this plant did to suddenly become so attractive to them!
I'm going to have to cut off the leaf the QM eggs are on and go ahead and bring it in before the RAs curl it up to hide in and eat.
Sherry

Heehee, and they do that at a very young age. I remember the first time I opened a folded over leaf that was a full-size leaf, and there was the tiniest caterpillar inside! "The little cat that thought it was a big dog"!

I found a QM on my FN one year (BRA.....before Red Admirals), but I don't think it is going to happen very often. Their preference is the Elm tree saplings here in the yard. Last year I found them on the Hackberry, too.

Nothing that I know of has used the Hops vine yet, and I am thinking about taking it out to make room for other things. Hate to because it really is pretty. I have one of the golden Hops. But it does get rambunctious on the other hand.

Susan

Yeah for the QMs! I have lots of hops vine--wish I could share with you! :)

All the eggs hatched today, including the ones I'm raising. I've never gotten a picture of a hatchling until today - talk about tiny! Notice that it doesn't yet have the spikes later instars have -
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I saw the female QM - I guess it was the same one - flitting around the garden, including the hops vine and the false nettles again today. I've got a hops vine (and a particular phlox I wanted) coming this week, to add to my QM host plants. I didn't stick around long enough to see if my Mama QM laid any more eggs. I've got some elm trees on my property - 'don't know why they've never used them.
Sherry

I got a new microscope/camera in December so I'm hoping I can get some shots that can compete with yours.

Congrats on the new camera, KC! Taking nature pictures is my hobby - I know y'all get tired of looking at them, but thank you anyway!
As my old Mama would say, "You beat all at dredging up old threads, KC!" :)
Sherry

KC, Congratulations on getting a new camera, and you know we expect to see lots of pictures now. ;-)

Sherry, We never get tired of looking at your great pictures, so keep bringing 'em on! :-)

Cathy

I just hate that we lose old threads that contain great info/pics. In reality, we don't lose them if you happen to know the URL but even if you post something new to them, if they are past page 68, they will not show up as a current thread again and new folks will never know about them. Anyway, I'm just trying to save a few of the goodies and it seems like most of the goodies are Sherry's.

That is too cool for school. You are one blessed butterfly lady. Isn't it neat how they stack those eggs as they lay them? Love it! Good luck!

Thanks, KC! Like Angie said, I'm blessed to live here in the land of plentiful butterflies! And it helps that I've planted more host and nectar plants to my property. :)

Sherry

On Sunday, my wife was scraping the front of our house, getting it ready to paint. A QM kept flying around her but she said she never saw it land. She left the area and I watched the QM. She landed on an elm tree that is maybe 3' from the front of our house. The tree is probably only 4' tall. After she flitted away, I found seven eggs on the leaf. And then I found more eggs. My wife came back and found THE stack. It has 7 eggs, which is a new record for me.

I took this pic:
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My neighbor took this version:
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There has to be at least 40 eggs on this poor tree. There is no way the tree can support all the future cats so I'll have to switch them to stinging nettles.

Have fun raising those QMs on the nettles, KC!

Those are the best two pictures of QM egg stacks I've ever seen! And the stacks have the most eggs, too!

By the way, do you know what type of elm they're on?

Sherry