In the Butterfy Garden: Caterpillar Predators

Customers often tell me that caterpillars they've been watching have suddenly disappeared and they wonder what could have happened to them. Sometimes they've just grown up and have gone off to pupate. But often they have become a victim of predators. Birds, of course, love a nice tasty caterpillar, but many smaller critters are predators as well. I recently captured two such predators with my camera.

This is a paper wasp devouring a monarch caterpillar. . . .


And this is what's left of a monarch caterpillar after a wasp is through with it:


Lizards (or anoles as most of our lizards are appropriately called) eat butterfly eggs and caterpillars. Here is a lizard with an adult butterfly. It was at the end of it's life and was struggling on the sidewalk. I could see the lizard eyeing it and then grab it. It was a pretty heavy load for the lizard so I had time to run get my camera and snap this picture just before the poor butterfly was carried into the brush:

Garden Critter Blogging

I was showing visitors around the butterfly garden when we spotted this snake winding its way in and out of the holes in the gothic top of the fence. Luckily my camera was nearby. That's the snake's head toward the lower right smiling for the camera. As best as I can tell from my Audubon Field Guide to Florida, it's an indigo which is a threatened species. Well, he's not threatened in my garden; we love him! By the way, that's an aristolochia vine sharing the fence. A great host plant for the pipevine swallowtail which I rarely see and the gold rim swallowtail which is the most abundant butterfly in my garden.