Life of the Gulf fritillary.

In the area where I work there is a walk/pathway that runs along the LA river or one of the many water drainage's that merge into the river. It's has become a wonderful opportunity for me to get some great macro shots of the local vegetation, flowers, and insects.

One of the insects that I started following was the Gulf fritillary which is a species of butterfly. Finding it actually began with a plant that I had started to notice on my walks which I came to discover was a Passiflora caerulea. It had these amazing flower that I had never seen the likes of and have been happy to see a few of the other species at some botanical gardens.

Unopened flower bud in early morning with dew drops.

An interesting thing to note about these flowers are the stigma(purple arms at the top)
and the corona filaments(the tendril looking things that form the flower). The stigma slowly move lower towards the flower after they open. Not sure of the purpose, for instance is it after pollination or to help promote pollination. The corona filaments start out all white, then start changing to a periwinkle blue, finally changing to violet.

Passiflora caerulea in full bloom near the LA river.

Passiflora caerulea after opening near the LA river.

The ovary(white bulb below the stigma arms) is prominent on this flower and after pollination occurs, it will eventually grow into an orange fruit with deep cherry red inside.

Passiflora(unknown species) at Huntington Gardens.

Initially I'd found the flower growing in grouping of shrubs known as Matilija poppies, which in and of themselves are pretty amazing and beautiful to photograph. They also should be a great subject to paint in watercolor.

Matilija Poppy near the LA river.

Matilija Poppy near the LA river.

This was the first time I'd seen a Gulf fritillary. I was lucking my camera with a macro lens around and looking for something to take a picture of. This guy caught my eye, I took several shots of it and started searching on the internet for what it was. The next day I found it cocooned...which in and of itself looked pretty exotic.

Caterpillar shortly after it's attached itself to a branch.

I went back and the next day, this is what I found. It actually took a bit of time to find it as it was actually a little smaller than the original caterpillar, plus the cocoon skin really blended with the branch.

Next day after transformation.

There was a second area further down the river where the Passiflora vine was growing. It was actually flourishing and had wrapped around the handrail for about 20-30 ft that lead down the the walkway. It had a large amount of life from various types of spiders, wasps(including an amazing Ichneumon Wasp), other flying insects, and of course the Gulf fritillary. This is also where I started noting cocoons that had started to brown and had little holes in them.

Empty cocoon after parasitiod wasps have exited(hole in center)

Not all things were good in this little world of these insects and mother nature can get interesting in keeping a population from becoming too large. The below image shows one of the parasitoid wasps that would eventually come out of the cocoon.

I started noticing them buzzing around the caterpillars while they were feeding. They weren't stalking them, they were just playing the waiting game. I'm not sure at what point it happened, but these wasps would lay eggs in the caterpillar. I suspect it was when they attached themselves prior to cocooning. The caterpillar seemed to survive for at least a week as it would still twitch if you touched it, but at a certain point, it was consumed and at least a few dozen of the wasps would emerge from the cocoon, boring holes to get out. I confirmed this by removing a couple of the cocoons and placing them into sealed jars. Sure enough, I had a container of tiny parasitoid wasps.

This decimated the population of the fritillaries in this area until the city cut back the vines, removing them from the hand rail.

Parasite wasp on cocoon(bottom right)

The life cycle

The eggs are about 1-1.5mm in size and have an interesting pattern on the outside. I had noticed the yellow dots on some of the leaves but didn't know what they where until I saw one of the butterflies flying around laying these eggs on the vines and leaves.

Egg on Tendril

The eggs were usually put on the underside of leaves which I assume was to protect it from predators as well as keeping it out of direct sunlight....though you could find some on the tops of leaves as well...so I could be completely off.

Egg on leaf

This shot was on one of the Passiflora that I had started growing. I noted that the eggs appeared at least a week before so I would check them out every couple of days to see if they'd hatched. I happened to come out when one was just crawling out of the egg so ran to grab my camera and snap this just as he was almost completely out of the egg. A few seconds later he was out and on the edge of the leaf.

One of the things that you'll eventually see is a molting. This is from a fairly young caterpillar. The colors darken fairly quickly and the spiky bits turn black again. The spikes are for show and don't actually hurt if you put your finger against them. You can brush them and it feels like stubble from a few days of facial hair growth.

These guys eat and eat and eat. You'll find them hanging around munching on the leaves.

The following shot was from the morning before it emerged. I didn't get to see it, but I've seen a few others after they had come out. The wings can be clearly seen with the orange and black pattern.

Through the time I went to the area where these butterflies appeared I was able to get some great closeup shots. I attempted to catch some in mid-flight, but that is definitely a tricky endeavor to get something good. This shot was one of my favorites as it was just hanging out.

Butterfly sitting on leaf.

I hadn't seen them feeding much but when I did, they seemed to not worry about me getting close to them. I was able to get several different shots of this one feeding before it left. At one point I actually thought it was dead since it was on it's side...maybe drunk from all that nectar???  :)

Sippin on nectar.

When you are around the area long enough, you're bound to find a mating pair...One of the final shots to complete the life cycle shots.

On several occasions I started spotting them laying eggs. they would usually lay several in a short period, floating from one place to another. This shot was from a series of shots where I was able to capture the moment that it laid it's eggs. This was not easy as it was a 1-2 second window and I was shooting manual focus.

Laying an egg on a dry part of a passiflora vine.

Another shot of one moments after it had come out of it's cocoon. This one had attached it's cocoon to the underside of the handrail. I got used to spotting the cocoons after a while and found at least half a dozen in about a week.

Shortly after emerging from cocoon.