Gulf Fritillary Egg Laying

Even though we failed to find very many Gulf Fritillary (Augraulis vanillae) eggs or caterpillars on 6/15's trip down to El Cerrito's Ohlone Greenway at Lincoln Ave., the butterfly that we caught is now laying away!

---

On Wednesday, after we were only able to collect a single newborn caterpillar that we ended losing before bringing it home, we were pretty disappointed. And even though we had managed to catch a butterfly, we were skeptical that we would be able to get anything out of it since we didn't even have any potted passionflower (the caterpillar's host plant) and were inexperienced with getting this species to lay eggs in captivity. Heck, we were scared that it may not have even been a female at first since the Gulf Fritillaries that we saw were always chasing each other in what could have been male territorial behavior. 

When we first caught the butterfly, we just used it to take pictures and didn't really have any intention of seriously getting it to lay eggs for us. In fact, for a while we just left it rest in a plastic food jar and didn't really do anything with it at all. But a few days later when we accidentally picked a few extra passionflower leaves for the two caterpillars we found on 6/16, we decided to give it a go anyway just to see what would happen.

The only experience we have had really with getting butterflies to lay eggs in captivity is with Anise Swallowtails (P. zelicaon). After hand-pairing them, we just trap them around a host plant with some screening and watch them go crazy when the sun is out and warms them up. They wouldn't lay any eggs any other set up. So, if the Gulf Fritillaries required similar conditions to squeeze the eggs out, we clearly weren't doing the right thing by simply dumping a few not very fresh leaf cuttings into a tiny container where it barely even has any room to fly in. Plus, we were keeping it inside where there is less natural light. However, what we found was quite different from what we had expected. . .

After a day or two after we carelessly shoved in a few passionflower leaves into the enclosure, we were surprised to discover that our butterfly had begun to lay eggs -- lots of them. By the time it died today (bad mistake to put the container out into the sun where it actually overheated the butterfly), it had layed 31 eggs which isn't too shabby for one butterfly. Certainly more than we would ever find in the wild at once at this time. Apparently, she didn't need any space to fly around while she was laying and just sat there. No heat or light required either and it didn't matter how undesirable the leaves may have seemed to us. It was too easy!

An now if only we could catch a few more female butterflies. . . 

Gulf Fritillary Laying an Egg (1)*

* Shown in 0.125x speed

Gulf Fritillary Laying an Egg (2)​

- Brian