Great Pics, MissSherry! I love the picture of the little guy. I think I'll start checking around here for cats as I have some nectaring Buckeyes. My agalinis that I planted from seed didn't come up. But, I have 3 big pots of snaps and lots of plantain.

Thanks for sharing.

Sandy

As always great pictures Sherry. Sure wish I could get my new digital camera figured out as well as you have yours.

Can share some local trivia on this bug though... Besides nominate Precis (Junonia) coenia, we also have form nigrosuffusa and form rosa on the Mojave and to some extent intergrades between them. Some of those intergrades can be very unusual and beautiful. In this environs Plantago and Linaria are their larval food plants, but back in 1992 my son and I established a surprising new LFP record for them. We were wandering along another one of those small Mojave Desert streams (in UT right at the corner of NV and AZ) looking for Limenitis archippus obsoleta larva and found lots of 4th instar larva of P. coenia on Nasturtium officinale in the stream. Surprising because the plant is not even a close cousin to their other local LFP's, but even more so because most of the larva were all completely underwater and happily feeding away. And we also found one pupa attached to the plants and bobbing away in the current. Couple of years later we again found more larva doing the same on the same plant, in yet another desert stream many miles away in SW UT. Only other lepidopteran larva we ever found on the Mojave feeding underwater was Platyprepia virginalis on submerged Sphagnum in yet another small stream.

L.

Wonderful shots, MissSherry! I sure wish I could find some to raiseÂI will just watch & live vicariously through yours. :)

Thank you for posting! I love those Buckeyes and am trying to entice them into my garden. I think I have just about every food source here now.

Thanks especially for the picture showing the little one on the grass--helps to see what it would look like feeding.

"Being a caterpillar person.." LOL. I am always squinting on my walks, checking little things. The ants tending to leafhoppers was distracting for a whole; now I know what they look like, so I can ignore them now.

Larry, That is so surprising that the caterpillars would eat underwater...has anyone studied that? How long can they stay underwater? Can they close their spiracles?

Sherry,

Thanks for sharing pictures of one of my favorite butterflies. I've tried Agalinis twice based on your experiences but it has failed both times. Guess I'll have to rely on my narrow leafed plantain to keep a FEW buckeyes in Camelot each year.

mike

Dallas County Lepidopterists list the following as host plants:

ACANTHACEAE: Snake-herb (Dyschoriste linearis), Violet Ruellia (Ruellia nudiflora)

PLANTAGINACEAE: English Plantain (Plantago lanceolata), Pale-Seed Plantain (P. virginica), Buck-Horn Plantain (P. coronopus), Dooryard Plantain (P. major), Common Plantain (P. rugelii), Cedar Plantain (P. helleri), Tallow-Weed (P. hookeriana);

SCROPHULARIACEAE: Beach Gerardia (Agalinis fasciculata), Flat-Flower Gerardia (Agalinis homalantha), Slender Gerardia (Agalinis tenuifolia), False Foxglove (Aureolaria grandifloria), American Bluehearts (Buchnera americana), Texas Paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa), Prairie Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja purpurea), Butter and Eggs (Linaria vulgaris); Snapdragon Vine (Maurandya antirrhiniflora), Toad-Flax (Nuttallanthus canadensis),

VERBENACEAE: Common Frogfruit (Lippia nodiflora), Lance-Leaf Frogfruit (Lippia lanceolata), Brazilian Verbena (Verbena bonariensis).

Of course, you have to know or experiment to find what is preferred in your area. I found them on plantago last year. But, my ruellia was a seedling. This year it has grown substantially. Sandy said hers were on the dwarf snaps, which Judy Burris and Wayne Richards recommend in lieu of the tall snaps. We'll see if they use it - if I see them this year.

Buckeyes are known for the variety of plants they will use as a host.

I have also had lots of Verbena bonariensis, but found no cats on it.

Susan

This is such an interesting thread. Larry, you have some of the most unusual and interesting stories. I think you have lived a most interesting life.

Maybe we will all find Buckeyes this year. They are around here. I just keep hoping for eggs. Last year, I didn't get any egg action until late in the season. I know that they also used my Angelonia for a host plant. But, I didn't find them until they were pupating. Also, they didn't prefer it like they did the snaps. They literally devoured the snaps. It's good to know that they tend to wander and can be found around the host plant instead of on it.

Sandy

Well now I've heard everything, Larry! I thought caterpillars would drown if they stayed underwater too long! Also, those other types of junonia aren't even listed in my butterfly books, so they must be rare for sure!
There are many of the plants that Susan listed growing around here, either naturally, or I've planted them, but, for whatever reason, I've never found them on anything but agalinis fasciculata and aureolaria flava, another member of the snapdragon family with leaves similar to agalinis and yellow flowers. I find aureolaria growing among agalinis on the Florida Pipeline behind my house, where it's real high and dry, sort of desert like - even when it rains a lot, the water drains off the pipeline rapidly.
I love the colors in the late instar cats!
Sherry

Had too many other lepidopteran irons in the fire to pursue a study bernergrrl, so turned it over to Clyde Gillette, a retired Lepidopterists in UT that is arguably the resident expert of UT leps. Since by then we were not active in the state lep society anymore, we no longer got its publication (also written by CG), so I don't know how far he took it. They did however move in and out of the water and air bubbles were trapped on their spines. With very little of the plant above water and so many larva grouped together that might be why they took up SCUBA diving to feed. In more normal environs that plant grows covering large areas, but on the desert it only occurs in very small and widely scattered patches - probably forcing the over-crowding of the larva.

Not hard to come up with stories Sandy when you have made studying and pursuing leps a major part of your life for over 40 years that you actively pursued to the point of it taking up most of your spare time.

It's a very variable bug Sherry, not rare at all and at least 4 forms have been associated with it depending on which author. Basically on the extreme end, rosa is a winter phenotype (or dry form) that is usually larger, and where the overall hue of the ventral wing is rosy red to purple. That can vary from pale rosy pink to deep purple. With nigrosuffusa, the extreme is dorsally dark grey to black with reduced or absent spots/bands, light tan fore tip, and the ventral pale tan with almost no markings on the hind and a brown/orange patch with small dark spot on the fore. It can vary to just looking like a darker version of the nominate bug with a pale ventral. Intergrades between the three can be just about any combination with some quite striking. Because it can be so variable, this is one of the species that has been used for studies on the effect of environmental influence on cladistics. It is well known to those of us who have done long genetic rearing studies of various species that photoperiod, temperature and humidity can and does have an acute effect on wing pattern determination and other cladistic factors.

Whew. I sure went a long ways from just the excellent pictures by Sherry... but hope some of you find it interesting.

L.

It IS interesting!
Sherry

For anyone who is trying to grow Agalinus from seed - it is a parasitic plant. I've decided if I ever try them again, I will just plant the seed directlly among some grasses. It will not grow if there are just a bunch of seeds in a box or something similar.

I believe it was MissSherry that told me this a couple of years ago. No?

Susan

That's correct, Susan, agalinis (like many members of the snapdragon family) is semi-parasitic on the roots of grasses. I've only gotten results sowing seeds directly into grasses.
Sherry

My first buckeye emerged Monday, and two more emerged this morning. They're the spring form, with "eyes" visible on their undersides - I got two pictures of one of them -
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Sherry

I'm so jealous! i've had false neetle for a year now, and i've seen no action. the false neetle is near a small lake too! oh well...

-chris

As always great pictures Sherry. You really caught the colors and details so well that what is normally considered a somewhat indestinct species on the desert in fact can be and is a very pretty butterfly. The spring form is much more striking than the summer form, but I always liked the fall form best, and especially those rosa that intergraded with nigrosuffusa. One of those "too many other fish to fry" species out here that can be so common they are overlooked. But I have always liked finding their larva in the wilds, and even though having reared and picked them up so many times for others, I always seemed to bring a few larva home every time I found them just to enjoy turning them loose and watching them fly away.

BTW, what camera are you using?

Sorry I haven't answered your question, Larry, but I'm just now seeing it. My camera is a simple, point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot SD1000 Digital Elph - it's real small and fits in my pocket easily.
I love the buckeyes, common or not! I was working up front today and found two more cats - YAY!
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Sherry