Sherry,
congrats..Those caterpillars are cute as a button..I raised a few Skipper-cats myself in Florida..
They enjoyed the Canna's.. :)
Best of Luck
Butterfly-Greetings
Susanne(SUE)

BTW, an awesome picture as usual.. :)

Very interesting cat. The colors are beautiful. Good luck on raising it.

Sandy

Man, what a beauty!!

I once tried to raise a SSSkipper egg after seeing the butterfly lay on a locust plant. It hatched and lasted for a few days then died.

I often wonder what differentiates our successes from our failures.

maryann

I found two on my Butterfly Pea Vine. Usually I just find the tiny ones then they disappear. But the two I have found this year were larger. I left them alone since they had made it that far. That colorful head sure says. "Leave me alone!"

My LTS cat didn't use the little container of leaves I made for it to pupate, instead it went underneath the paper towels and did it - I'm just happy it pupated successfully! This morning I found its skipper caterpillar head with a little dab of discarded skin next to the chrysalid, and as the day has worn on, it's getting the white wax coating that my Florida butterfly gardening book shows -
{{gwi:491987}}
Sherry

Neat! I hope you take a pic of it after it ecloses too because I'd love to see that beauty! I think it's great that it pupated successfully!
Cathy

I sure will, Cathy! It was beyond the hatchling stage when I brought it in to raise, so I hope its leaf nest protected it from parasites - I'd hate for flies to come out of the chrysalid!
Sherry

Yeah, I know what you mean, Sherry. I'm thinking the same thing about the cats that I bring in now ever since I had two wasps come out of some of my BST pupas this year. I'd especially hate for that to happen to your long-tailed skipper! It upsets me enough when the Monarchs are sometimes parasitized, but it really would upset me if something rare (rare to me anyway) would have that happen to it, and I will be hoping for the best for your LTS.

On another note, I forget if I said, but I decided to bring in an AL but on its terms. I laid down a pot of pearly everlasting right next to the pussytoes that the AL was on, and when I went out the next day it had crawled onto them and had some leaves sewn together. So now I have the pot on our back porch. I'll keep an eye on it to make sure that it has enough leaves to eat. I honestly don't know how many they do eat. If it's like the Indigo Duskwing that I have, those leaves will probably last it until it pupates. I guess I'll have to rig up something around it for it to pupate on. I'm just not exactly sure how to do it yet.
Cathy

They don't eat much, Cathy, and they frequently pupate right on the host plant. 'Sure hope it works out!
{{gwi:449577}}
Sherry

Ooh, pretty picture, Sherry! I think they are so pretty and thanks, I hope it works out too. I wanted to go small in case it doesn't, but I'm thinking positive. Now I'm curious to see if it will pupate on the pearly everlasting. I really wish I could take a decent picture with my daughter's camera. I even tried taking some last evening and they all turned out really blurry. I'm thinking that Kodaks can't do closeups or something. The Olympus that I had (still have, only it stopped working after 2 years of use) did nice closeups but it doesn't do anything now. At least Amber's cam works.
Cathy

The LTS emerged this morning, and I released him/her. Unfortunately, it zoomed out of the cage before I was able to get a picture. It was perfect, though. If I see it in the garden, maybe I'll recognize it as being newly emerged, and I can get a picture then.
Sherry

Yeah MissSherry! That's wonderful that you got to be successful with it. Hope we get to see a pic soon! Thanks for updating us.

I have cannas which have some kind of skipper, I think. I leave them alone as I have heard they are difficult to raise. I also have cats on Broccoli and cabbage. I would like to bring them in but am not sure how to raise them.

Cats on broccoli and cabbage? You might have cabbage whites, a rare butterfly around here - I've only seen them a few times myself. I guess you'd raise them the same way you raise any other cat - if I had some, I'd raise them just for the joy of raising some cats that make white butterflies.
The skippers on the cannas make cute little Brazilian skippers.
Sherry

I had no clue that the whites aren't common. I planted the cabbage and broccoli for the cats, not to eat(even though I really like both). They are well eaten since I planted them in April. I was going to pull them up but saw more cats on them yesterday. They are not pretty in a butterfly garden. Do you think they could be some kind of moth?

Before you pull them up, are you seeing the white butterflies? If you are, I'd leave the cats. I know that there are also moth larvae that devour broccoli and cabbage. I've included a picture of the Cabbage White Larva so you can ID yours.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cabbage White Larva

I found one and brought it in. It is a moth(I'm pretty sure). I am going to leave the cabbage and broccoli, but I won't plant it in my flowerbeds again (not for moths). They are ugly planted in my flowerbeds all eaten and scraggly.

I found a LTS egg on the same group of desmodium plants that I found the first one on, so after it hatched I brought it in to raise. This morning, I saw a LTS going up into my beans (Kentucky Wonder) so I figured she must have laid an egg in there. This afternoon when I went to pick beans I found two LTS cats, much further along than the tiny little desmodium cat - I brought one of them in. I've got some confidence now in my ability to raise them successfully, but I don't want to go overboard! Two's enough for now.
Maybe I'll be able to get a picture of the adult skippers these cats make.
Sherry

Here's a Long Tailed Skipper that visited my Florida yard.

{{gwi:491981}}

We need to trade places Miss Sherry! We have had a dearth of butterflies except cabbage whites. I can look out my window and see a half dozen at any time. We don't get long tailed skippers here. Boy, I would love to see one! Congrats!

Elisabeth

Congrats on the Long Tailed Skipper find. I hope you do get some pics this time.

Sandy

Another long-tailed skipper emerged this morning. I made a lot of pictures of it, but the bug keeper I put the chrysalis in is made of plastic, which must be what made all the pictures blurry. I made one halfway decent one, then opened the top to get a better one that showed the top colors, and it flew out - I tell you, these LTSs are ready to go as quickly after emerging from the chrysalis as any I've ever seen! The colors didn't look as brilliant as they do on the ones I see nectaring in my garden, so it was either a female or it was still wet enough to darken the color. Anyway, here's a side view of him/her -
{{gwi:491992}}
Sherry

It's so frustrating when you can't get the photo you want! I'm just glad you got to raise these beauties.

Sandy

Congratulations MissSherry! Can see just a little blue and those wonderful cream spots. Maybe you'll see her/him later in your garden.

These guys have moved north this year, I've seen several so far including this very fresh one yesterday.

{{gwi:491995}}

{{gwi:491998}}

{{gwi:492001}}

We don't have those here, or at least I haven't seen any. The colors are very pretty on them!

Congratulations,
Sue

You got some pretty pictures of them on your lantana, Curt! I'm still seeing cats on my beans, and they're not eating the blooms, so we're still eating fresh beans.
Sherry

Beautiful pictures Curt! I love those tails! Last year I saw two here in CT but not until Oct.

I'll have to start looking more now that I know you've had them in PA.

Sherry, congrats on your successful LTS raising. Skippers are not so easy to raise.

Maryann in CT

Incredible, I just witnessed a Long-tailed Skipper deposit eggs on Desmodium in my yard. In clusters of 4 and 5 I now have 22 eggs. If they are fertile and I am able to raise them to adulthood they would probably emerge in October. That would account for the October sightings up north here in PA and ones like Maryann had in CT.
Misssherry, how long does the lifecycle take for these guys? I have reared them before a long time ago from ones I found in GA but didn't keep track of how long it took.

Curt

I never write down how long any of my cats take, but I'll guess 4-5 weeks or more total - about 3 weeks or so for the caterpillar stage and about 2 weeks for the chrysalis. They're a good bit slower than most butterflies their size - pipevine swallowtails, which are bigger, take less time, at least in the cat stage. Maybe this lengthy larval and pupal stage occurs because skippers are more closely related to moths than other butterflies, I don't know.
Anyway, congrats Curt! They used my desmodium, too, until I planted Kentucky Wonder beans.
Sherry

Curt, that makes sense..if yours make another generation now, they would have to expand their range in the Sept and early Oct. If the winds were to be right then, They'd end up here in CT.

Maryann