A Walking Visit - Day Two

The second day of Alex's visit we decided to explore Teague Hammock Preserve.  This place is out there in terms of driving distances but it was well worth it.  There are two sections to the site, Teague and Paleo.  With rain threatening, we started off at Teague and were not disappointed.  Teague Hammock is a 300-acre site that is an excellent example of historical small prairie hammocks that appeared in this part of the county (before farming entered the area).  It kept us so occupied that we never made it to the Paleo section.

Upon entering, we saw this Red-shouldered Hawk and it saw us.  Seemed to be an omen of a good day out.

We hadn't even made it thirty yards when Darlene spotted a Monarch Caterpillar!  Hard to believe we had never before seen one of these in the wild.

They are beautiful.

Danus plexippus

The long fleshy tentacles (or filaments) on each end are not antennae.  They are sense organs.

About five seconds after spotting our first Monarch Caterpillar we started spotting these...

Agraulis vanillae - The Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar

Two new caterpillars in the first fifteen minutes. 

This was definitely shaping up to be a good walk!

Caterpillars were not all the new we were seeing, either.  For example, we saw Creeping Cucumber

which is more formally known as Melothria Pendula.

We are used to seeing thistle out west not in Florida.

This is Cirsium nuttallii (common name: Nuttall's thistle).

This beautiful skipper butterfly was new for us.

The Long-tailed Skipper, as it is commonly known, posed for us to get both a top

and underside shot of the wings which made identification much easier.  Thank you Urbanus proteus.

Blues and purples were the running theme in the flower department starting with this Blue Flag Iris,

moving on to the Brazilian Nightshade or Solanum seaforthianum

and finally onto this Passion Flower.

Also in the new-to-us plant department was

this thorny booger called Solanum viarum

or Tropical Soda Apple.

It has these small, white flowers on it.

We spotted a Pearl Crescent Butterfly ((Phyciodes tharos) which is often confused with the Phaon Crescent.

Also easily confused are the White and  Common Checkered Skipper Butterfly.  Pyrgus albescens or Pyrgus communis. 
We're not sure which one this is.

This cool character is the new-to-us Florida leaf-footed bug (Acanthocephala femorata).

Back to the caterpillars...

With this next group, we thought we had seen three new and completely different caterpillars.  As it turns out the Saltmarsh Caterpillar has many forms. 

This is what seemed to be the most common form that we saw.  Some call this the black form.

Estigmene acrea is the scientific name for the Saltmarsh Caterpillar.  Their nickname should be speedy.
These cats move faster than any we've seen yet.

The next one we saw was the yellow (or blonde) variety.

It was so different from the black variation that we surely did not realize it was also a Saltmarsh Caterpillar.

The cinnamon (or brown) variant is the third Saltmarsh Caterpillar that we saw on this walk.

So, if you saw those three caterpillars would you think they were all the same caterpillar?

After reading about it in the brochure, we spotted some Scorpion-tail (Heliotropium angiospermum) on our walk. 

Polygyra cereolus - the Southern flatcoil snail was seen along the way.

This spider egg case was spotted strung up between some tree branches.

Nicole finally got a full-bodied shot of Elanoides forficatus - the Swallow-tailed Kite.  Check out the smaller bird below him.

We unrolled a leaf-roller roll-up to spy on this spotted beauty.  No idea on the ID yet.

While we're on the spotted theme here is a Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) that we spotted.

We also spotted a very excited Cymaenes tripunctus -

the Three Spotted Skipper.  Thankfully he calmed down long enough for us to get a shot of his tell-tale three spots.

Darlene found what she thought was a first or second instar Monarch Caterpillar.
It was the size of or smaller than a grain of rice but the yellow and black coloring sure seemed to fit with the Monarch.

Upon closer examination, however, we discovered that it was not a Monarch but a second instar Queen Butterfly Caterpillar.
Danaus  gilippus - a new caterpillar for us!  A few ID characteristics are the third set of filaments (spikes at this stage).  Monarchs only have two sets.
Also, it's yellow is in the form of spots not the stripes that the Monarch has.

Well, we thought we'd be able to finish up both day two and day three here but it appears that we saw way more than we realized on Day 2. 

So, we'll finish this for now with probably the most crazy and cool thing we saw on our way out.

We have seen Ichneumon Wasps before but of the ones we've seen Ichneumonidae Megarhyssa macrurus definitely takes the cake.

This beautiful insect is more commonly called the Giant Ichneumon Wasp (at two inches in size). 

It also has a nickname - the stump stabber - because it uses its extremely long (nearly twice the length of its body long - at four inches in length) ovipositor to lay an egg inside dead wood.  The one in our shot above was laying an egg when we spotted it.

And with that very cool find we will leave you for now.  Thanks for going along on our hike!