Butterfly Lady

I love fall! Butterflies are abundant this time of year. Monarchs are migrating south. Autumn leaves are starting to show their crimson, orange and golden colors. And, then there are pumpkins!

Here are a few ideas on how you can celebrate this wonderful time of year with butterflies and pumpkins.

Monika Moore, the California Butterfly Lady, always creates fun fall butterfly displays using Monarchs she’s raised.

Heather Ward of Heather Ward Wildlife Art carved this Monarch butterfly. She explained, “When carving a pumpkin, it is important to cut out pieces in the right order. Start with the smallest first. In this case, I had a ton of tiny dots. Those were actually the easiest to put in – I just used a drill bit to poke holes in. Then I worked on the smaller patches on the wings, then the larger ones. I still broke a few lines, but it held together. Last, I carved the antennae and upper part of the background circle, then the lower part of the circle.”

This adorable little girl and her butterfly won the 2014 This Old House Pumpkin Carving Contest.

Need some help carving a butterfly? Download this free stencil with instructions from Better Homes and Gardens.

Don’t like scooping out the pumpkin seeds and getting your hands all mushy? Here’s one more project idea that involves absolutely no “pumpkin guts”. These three butterfly-themed pumpkins were carved using surface carving, a design is created by scraping away the tough outer pumpkin rind and creating texture in the softer flesh beneath.

Don’t feel like you are creative? You can carve a pumpkin using butterfly-shaped cookie cutters and a rubber mallet to make these butterfly designs.

Hollow out each pumpkin as you would for traditional carving. Then, center a cookie cutter on one side and gently tap with the rubber mallet until the cookie cutter goes all the way through the flesh. Start in the center and work side-to-side to avoid bending the metal. Remove the cut pumpkin along with the cutter, and clean up the edges with a sharp paring knife.

You might want to consider purchasing a Professional Pumpkin Carving Tool Kit to help you carve your pumpkins.

Happy Butterfly Halloween!

Halloween is just around the corner. Do you have your costume ready? Here are some butterfly-themed costumes you might like.

What an adorable idea for a couple!

Here is another cute duo.

This family dressed up as the whole lifecycle of the Monarch butterfly.

Don’t you love this adorable little butterfly?

Here is an adorable DIY Monarch butterfly costume.

This video shows how to make Monarch butterfly wings out of garbage bags.

Even dogs can fly!

Sometimes a child-created costume can be the best!

And if you are not creative and just too busy to make a butterfly costume, you can always find one online.

Hoping to see lots of butterflies this Halloween!

If you are growing herbs such as parsley, fennel, carrots, radishes, celery, or dill in your garden then you most likely have encountered what some call parsley worms.

Although many may regard these “worms” as a nuisance, they should be treated with care as these “worms” are actually the caterpillars of the Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) or Anise Swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) butterflies. These butterflies not only grace your garden with their beauty, but they are also important pollinators.

Sometimes people confuse these caterpillars with Monarch caterpillars. They do resemble each other, but the big difference is Monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. Black swallowtails eat plants from the Apiaceae or Umbelliferae family commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family.

If you do not want the caterpillars eating your herbs, gather them up and place them in a container with some food. This will protect the vegetables and herbs you want to eat. And once they become butterflies you can release them so they can pollinate your garden.

So if you want butterflies in your garden don’t kill the caterpillars!

If you thought the Monarch (Danaus plexippus), was the only royal butterfly of North America you would be wrong. Another royal member, the Queen (Danaus gilippus) is a cousin to the Monarch and adorns many southern gardens with its lovely orange wings.

The Queen is chiefly a tropical species. In the United States, it’s usually confined to the southern regions. It’s quite common in Florida and southern Georgia, as well as in the southern parts of Texas, California, and other states bordering Mexico, including Arizona and New Mexico. Periodically, a stray may be found in the Midwest. Because of climate change, they may even stray farther north as time goes on.

Queens and Monarchs are often mistaken for each other in their various life stages because of their resemblances. But if you look closely, it’s not that hard to tell the difference between Monarchs and Queens.

Like the Monarch, caterpillars of the Queen also feed on different species of milkweeds. The larvae of the Queen butterfly have an extra set of filaments the soft horn-like structures on their topside. The Queen caterpillar, similar to the Monarch, has black, yellow, and white stripes, but the pattern varies.

The chrysalis of the Queen is identical to that of the Monarch but is typically smaller. Also, sometimes has a pink hue.

Like male Monarchs, male Queens have a black spot on each hindwing. These black dots are pheromone scales. The Monarch butterflies do not use pheromones during courtship and mating, but Queen butterflies do use them.

“Gregg’s mistflower produces a natural compound called intermedine, which is a pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA for short). PA’s occur in many plants and are well known to ranchers, being very poisonous to livestock (and humans) as they serve to protect the plants from grazing. However, it turns out that intermedine isn’t poisonous to queen butterflies, but is essential to their reproduction. When you see queens nectaring on Gregg’s mistflower, over 90% of them are males happily imbibing intermedine with the nectar. Then they convert part of the intermedine to a smaller molecule named danaidone which is a sex attractant pheromone that draws in the females.

During mating, the male queen passes the remaining unchanged intermedine to the female as a “nuptial gift” that once again manifests itself as a toxin, this time rendering her eggs unpalatable to predators! Thus, as the butterfly pollinates the flower, the flower provides a molecule that in two ways enables the butterfly to reproduce!” “Gregg Mistflower, the Queen Butterfly, and the Nuptial Gift” by by Ray Conrow, Native Plant Society of Texas. https://npsot.org/posts/gregg-mistflower-the-queen-butterfly-and-the-nuptial-gift/

Although the Queen does not undertake dramatic migrations like the Monarch, they will travel short-distances at tropical latitudes in areas that have a distinct dry season. During those periods, the Queens will fly from lowlands to higher elevations. (Krizek, Paul A. and Opler, George O. Butterflies: East of the Great Plains: An Illustrated Natural History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.)

The Queen also bears a great resemblance to Viceroy and Soldier butterflies. Viceroys, like Monarchs, have dark veins across the upper side of the wing. The Soldier is perhaps the most similar to the Queen butterfly, but still has slightly more defined veins on its upper side.