Photo credit: Hannah Nendick-Mason Gulf fritillary butterfly

For months I have been babying my clematis and passion vine that are planted in the same pot.  I thought I almost lost them back when we received about four inches of rain one late afternoon in April.  The rain came so fast and filled the pot to the point where water was spilling over the top. When I went to dump the pot, I thought that the seeds probably went with the water as well, because I had just planted them a few days prior.

A little over a week later the seeds from the passion vine germinated. Then I started to see signs that the clematis had survived as well.  For a few months I enjoyed the blooming clematis while watching the passion vine grow up the trellis in anticipation of it blooming.  As time when by, I would tear off leaves that showed signs of leaf miners, all the while wondering when it was going to bloom. After a little research the anticipation was over.  I learned that it takes about three years or so for passion vines to start blooming and even longer if started by seeds.

However, I kept watering it and picking off leaves.  I noticed that the gulf fritillary butterflies took a-liking to the vine, but there no flowers.  Well, yesterday when I was leaving the house, I noticed that the passion vine was looking a little sparse; I had not paid much attention as it’s been raining the last few days and I have not had a chance to do much scouting.  I found out why the gulf fritillaries were flying about. Upon closer inspection I saw all these orange caterpillars with black spikes, they range from about a ½-inch to 1½-inches long.  It turns out that passion vine is the host plant for the gulf fritillary larvae. So, all this time they were depositing their eggs on the leaves.

Gulf fritillary butterflies are bright orange with black markings around the border and three black-rimmed white spots on each forewing. The larvae are generally orange with black branched spines and greenish-black stripes.

Photo Credit: James Morgan Gulf fritillary larvae on passion vine

Eggs are yellow, laid singly on leaves of host plants. Adults move northward in spring and form temporarily breeding colonies throughout the southeast. Individual vagrants may occasionally reach into the central U.S., but rarely into the Midwest. Starting in late summer and continuing through fall, huge numbers of adults migrate southward into peninsular Florida. Larvae feed on Passion Flower – Passiflora spp.

Info about them here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/567.

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