Category: Common Milkweed

Pollinators’ Delight

Heading out to yoga this morning, I had to stop to take some pictures. Pollinators on the Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) having a grand time, were calling to me. In the photo, I captured more than I expected. The Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) was what caught my attention, and there to its right a Bumble Bee (Bombus). The unexpected surprise though, the Plume Moth (Pterophoridae) which is barely visible in the lower left of this image.

Be watching for a post about Plume Moths. Maybe tomorrow? They are fascinating creatures.

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Silvery Checkerspot

Warm sunlight shining through a tiny butterfly wing. Capturing this view of the wings was a challenge. A view that this little critter didn’t want to share. But seeing this, the underside of the wings, makes identification easy. Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) on Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens). In this view the hindwing is pale with a large white crescent at the margin. That is a key to identification.

Another Silvery Checkerspot with that same ventral view of the wing. Again the telltale white crescent at the margin.

Adult Silvery Checkerspots seek nectar at many species of flowers including Black-eyed Susan, Apple Mint, Common Milkweed, Red Clover, and Dogbane.

Females lay eggs often a bit more than one hundred at a time on larval host plant leaves that include asters, coneflowers, and sunflowers. In their early larval stages they stay together consuming those leaves. Though they can totally skeletonize those leaves I won’t panic since I know that they’ll turn into precious little butterflies.