A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Maker of butterflies with a penchant for antiquated art supplies and good gin. kristen.gilpin@gmail.com / lepcurious.blogspot.com/
Tampa, Florida
Sign In to follow
I want to come visit this tree!
Always exciting to find in your yard. They used to come visit our back deck in Forest City PA when I was a child. Hello from a former Scrantonian, transplanted to Tampa FL
~Kristen.
Hi there. You have found a Tobacco Hornworm (Maduca sexta) that has been parasitized with Braconid wasps (Cotesia congregatus). The white structures on the outside of the caterpillar are the the cocoons of the Braconid wasps. The caterpillar will likely not live, but there will be lots of new Braconid wasps in the world.
Hi Megan, it seems the wrong shape for Calocera cornea, as the ends of each fruiting body are spatulate rather than the pointed basidiocarps one sees with Small Staghorn fungus.
Which is why I love this site!
Thanks for the ID Hope Family!
That certainly does look like mating behavior. The darker of the two butterflies is indeed the female and the male is brighter colored. If you want to know way more about butterfly mating than you are possibly interested in, here's a good paper (that is not behind a pay wall) http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/ias/...
When photographing wildflowers like this, try to get photos of the flower from a few angles and also the foliage. Some wildflowers are maddeningly difficult to identify without more pictures.
Great photo!
@Abby Ccga: I just chose to ignore the comment and hope something got lost in translation.
