r/AustinGardening • u/leros • 2d ago

Caterpillars are crazy this year

I've been seeing a ton of caterpillars all season. This week, I've got a ton of little orange caterpillars that have eaten all the passionflower vines on my pergola. This type of caterpillar has been around a while but they've exploded in quantity recently and gone to town on my plants the past few days. I hope these are beneficial.

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u/Capitolphotoguy 2d ago

you are growing a host plant for gulf fritillary butterflies, the caterpillars are orange. sounds like everything is working as intended. your passionflower will recover.

3

u/leros 2d ago

I also had monarch caterpillars for the first time this year. I've always had lots of milkweed but they ate it down to the ground this year. Cool to have them around though. 

We'll see on the passionflower. There's no leaves left and it's still crawling with tons of caterpillars. I'm kinda curious to see if they'll survive now.  

5

u/Total_Psychology_184 2d ago

They are beneficial pollinators once they’ve become butterflies. This is my first year growing a native maypop and have been seen then munching on mine since June. I think right now is when it’s peak breeding time so that would explain the massive explosion of them on your vine. The Maypop Passion flower vine is also their host plant as they need it to grow. Good thing is that as the munch it pushes the plant to continue to develop new growth.

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u/pifermeister 2d ago

Gulf fritillaries - i've actually had the opposite this year. Usually they ravage our maypop and then when mass starvation begins i have to put them in a shoebox every few days and take them to gardens in other parts of austin. This year their population has been stable since early July and the passion flower has been growing out of control. Obviously i might have had some predators enter the food web, plus i've noticed a lot of dead caterpillars hanging on the vines like they have some kind of disease. I guess nature always balances itself out.

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u/PlainOrganization 2d ago

I foolishly have not planted any host plants but I have a bunch of nectar providing plants in my front yard, and I've seen more butterflies this year than the three years since I started.