Zebra Longwings

 Good Morning!  Opened my front door this morning and found this guy.  My first thought was that he had just eclosed (come out of chrysalis), but then I couldn't figure out why the chrysalis still looked occupied.   Oh well, I went inside and forgot about it.  Then...













 I went outside again and the one butterfly turned into 2.  Then it made sense.  The longwings are like Fritillaries, they mate as soon as they eclose.  Turns out the first butterfly I saw was a male waiting to mate.  Did some research and found out this is called Pupal Mating. Cool right?    Here they are together.  Then...

I looked again and noticed two more butterflies, which means another chrysalis eclosed and a male came to mate.  Longwings love the passion vine.  We now have three plants and that has really increased the butterfly population in our yard.