Best wishes for a FANTASTIC 2009!

The caption contest winner is announced and a new caption contest begun.

It's time to vote for the oddest place for a butterfly to pupate. Check out the photos submitted by you!

From eggs to caterpillars, the various forms and colors are shared on two new pages on the website. Caterpillars sport hair do's from spiked to combed to no hair to be found.

A rainbow of colors and a world of shapes, butterfly and moth eggs are intricately and beautifully made.

If you find eggs, the species of the butterfly that laid the eggs can often be determined simply by the species of plant upon which the egg was laid. The color and shape of the egg are the next indicators of the species. Of course, the area where the eggs are found are also important: the country or state.

Sometimes it is hard or impossible to determine the species. Viceroy and Red-Spotted Purple butterfly eggs are alike as well as Julia and Gulf Fritillary eggs. Zebra Longwing and Gulf Fritillary eggs can be often identified by an educated guess; was the passionvine growing in sun or shade and where on the passionvine are the eggs located? (Gulfs lay in the sun and Zebras in the shade. Gulfs lay anyone on or near the plant while Zebras lay on the tender tips and tendrils.)

Caterpillars, like eggs, come in many shapes, sizes, and colors.

Some moth and butterfly caterpillars resemble, such as the Gulf Fritillary butterfly and Oleander (Polka-dot) Moth. (Scroll to the bottom of the page linked here to see both caterpillars.)

The linked page has photos of many species of butterfly and moth caterpillars. These are only a drop in the ocean of species that are found in Florida, let alone in the world!

Colors range from white to green to brown to red to yellow to striped to spotted to splotched to ... the results of God's imagination in the world of Lepidoptera are fun!

Whether you are a teacher, gardener, farmer, or any other profession/life that includes (or you want it to include) butterflies, please consider taking a course from the Association for Butterflies (AFB)!

Teachers; AFB's Monarch Rearing in the Classroom online course will be held from January 19 - February 7. This is a very through course that covers rearing containers, food, disease, flea prevention, deformed chrysalises, and much more.

This course answers questions you didn't know to ask!
Did you know?
1. Loss of appetite is a symptom of disease
2. Washing eggs with a bleach solution may prevent some diseases without harming eggs or larvae developing in eggs (egg wash recipe included)
3. Petting a dog or cat before touching milkweed can kill your larvae
4. Dogbane looks like and grows among milkweed and your larvae can tell the two plants apart even if you can't
5. 'Certified Organic' can be deadly to your larvae
6. Gravity is a necessity
7. Larvae use their feet to remove their head capsules

While exploring the world of butterflies and moths, we have learned many lessons about life. We are working to use these lessons to improve ourselves.

God has a way of teaching us through our interests. If you have learned a life lesson through butterflies and moths and would like to share it, I would be interested in hearing from you. Thanks bunches! Edith

"Do you think green is my color?" Andrea Smith

It's time to vote! Please send your vote to edith@buyabutterfly.com.

If you have a photo of an odd place that a butterfly or moth is pupating, please share it. We will continue to add photos to this page and create additional pages with odd pupation location photos. Thank you!

(PS If you sent the photo of a Monarch pupating on a mirror, please contact me! )

An orange Julia butterfly drinks from an orange.

Please send your suggested captions to edith@buyabutterfly.com.

The winner of the contest will receive a $20 gift card from Shady Oak Butterfly Farm.

Nosema is only a true concern for those who raise butterflies or moths generation after generation. Some species are heavily infected in nature while others rarely, if ever, contract nosema or closely related diseases.

If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with your friends. Every 100th new subscriber (and the person who recommended Butterflies!) will receive a gift from Shady Oak. The 1,000th subscriber wrote, "I received my thank you gift for being the 1000th person to sign up for the newsletter. It was way more than I expected. THANK YOU."

Photo right: the Smith clan (missing four due to work and illness).

Until next time, Edith, Stephen, Ester, Michelle, Christina, Rachel, and the gang