Pipevine Butterflies and Their Caterpillars

by Donna Lewis

So, for a while I have been talking about the really neat caterpillars of the Pipevine butterfly.  Their host plant is the Pipevine plant.  I have a naturalized Pipevine in my garden called  Aristolochia fimbriata that originally came from Brazil.  There are native ones in our area, which are very hard to see and find.

My plant is a groundcover plant not a vine.  The caterpillars will eat the plant leaves and stems down to the ground overnight once they hatch.

Then in about three weeks, the little plant regrows, and this happens four times during the summer months.  It is amazingly fast how this happens.

The Pipe-vine Butterfly produces two different colors of caterpillars!  Crazy! I do not know of another butterfly that does this.

I have looked up tons of information from many groups on this color issue. I have found that the older field guides and published books believe as the caterpillars aged, they changed colors. I do not think that is correct, after watching them for many years.

The newest theory from several universities including the latest study from The University of Virginia is that hot weather causes the red color to emerge rather than the black color. This is the current theory.

So let me throw a wrench on this theory.  Right now, today May 20th, 2022, it is really hot in my garden.  It is hot everywhere in Central Texas. And I have a grouping of both the red caterpillars and the black ones.

So how does that fit into the current findings? A real puzzle.   We will just have to keep watching and see if nature will tell us her secret.

Nature is more amazing than anything mankind can produce, and they don’t even need a computer.  Wow.

Who are you gardening for?

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Sorry for the delay in blog publishing. Your poor blogger has been working too hard at her paid job and has been dealing with world events, like the rest of us. There will be catch-up blogs coming in the next few days.