I was out watering in my garden when I spotted a Gulf Fritillary Butterfly flying around a Pipe Vine we had planted for the Pipevine Swallowtail to lay eggs on. I rushed over to take a closer look. I was not to late it was still hovering around the plant. To my great surprise it laid an egg right before my eyes, but on the wrong plant!
This is a Pipevine. It is the host plant for the Pipevine Swallowtail. | Our Pipevine has these strange looking pipes that grow on it. |
Most people would not care. They would think to themselves, it’s just an egg, it would probably get eaten anyway. To me it is more than just an egg. It was created by God and is my responsibility to care for the lost caterpillar that would be hatching from this egg. I am thankful that God allowed me to see that Gulf Fritillary laying an egg so that I could save the caterpillars life and now share the story with you.
part two…
When the little caterpillar hatched I had two options, one, buy the host plant or put it on it’s host plant. We live five minutes away from a nursery that sells it’s host plant. My mom took me to the nursery to transfer it onto the correct plant, a “Passion Flower” vine. If that caterpillar had a mind I can only imagine what it would say about the moving container we carried it in. It was a glass jar with fruits on it and a panty hose across the top!
After we found the correct host plant we transferred it.  | “Passion Flower” vine  |
 | When the Gulf Fritillary gets big it will look like this. This caterpillar is almost ready to make it’s pupae. Then soon after come out as a beautiful butterfly. |
do you know how many days it takes to hatch from its pupa?
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