ceruleanbutterfly's Favorites

Through a reintroduction project of an extirpated species spearheaded by Liam O'Brien and Jonathan Young we translocated 1,500 larvae divided among several Presidio Park sites in March of 2017. The larvae metamorphosed into chrysalides, the individual chrysalis became butterfly, the butterflies matted and laid their brood, the eggs hatched and we are still finding larvae this late in the year with high-hopes that these little, fuzzy-buggers will take-to-the-wing in spring after their fourth instar and produce the 2018 Presidio generation that will fly in 2019... Larvae observed here on Mimulus aurantiacus. I had the pleasure of seeing this species of butterfly larvae on Mimulus just yesterday while hiking around Oat Hill in Calistoga.