I was pleasently suprised to find this strange caterpillar sitting on a
Gillardia leaf one afternoon. Aparently, it had crawled from a nearby Snapdragon
plant to sleep the day away. Of course I brought it inside to raise and watch it
grow (not to mention to find out what the HECK it was!) I had a hunch of its
identity from pictures in Florida Butterfly Gardening, by the Minnos, but wasn't entirely
sure. For a few days, it was known as 'mystery cat.' I put some snapdragons in the container
with the caterpillar and it ate them. It was a really pretty caterpillar from the
top ( see the pic on the right.) I noticed it was a night-time feeder, and slept
during the day. It crawled up the side of the container and hung along the
sides, head down, during days. At night and evenings it would come down to eat.
I was thrilled when I saw it in the "J" postition one day, and that
evening, it shed its skin for the last time and went into the chrysalis stage. The
chrysalis had spots on the top side, and different colors on the
underside. It only took six days to emerge! Buckeyes are very fast
fliers, and soon as he figured out he was out of the cage, POOF! off he flew.
I did get a good look at his topside, but wasn't able to get a pic (darn!). I
did get a good pic of his underside, as well as the caterpillar and chrysalis.
I was pleasently suprised to find this strange caterpillar sitting on a
Gillardia leaf one afternoon. Aparently, it had crawled from a nearby Snapdragon
plant to sleep the day away. Of course I brought it inside to raise and watch it
grow (not to mention to find out what the HECK it was!) I had a hunch of its
identity from pictures in Florida Butterfly Gardening, by the Minnos, but wasn't entirely
sure. For a few days, it was known as 'mystery cat.' I put some snapdragons
in the container
with the caterpillar and it ate them. It was a really pretty caterpillar from the
top ( see the pic on the right.) I noticed it was a night-time feeder, and slept
during the day. It crawled 
up the side of the container and hung along the
sides, head down, during days. At night and evenings it would come down to eat.
I was thrilled when I saw it in the "J" postition one day, and that
evening, it shed its skin for the last time and went into the chrysalis stage. The
chrysalis had spots on the top side, and different colors
on the
underside. It only took six days to emerge! Buckeyes 
are very fast
fliers, and soon as he figured out he was out of the cage, POOF! off he flew.
I did get a good look at his topside, but wasn't able to get a pic (darn!). I
did get a good pic of his underside, as well as the caterpillar and chrysalis.
