If you have a passionflower vine (Passiflora), you probably have cats.
No, not the four-legged ones that meow, chase mice or cavort with catnip.
These 'cats or caterpillars are part of the life cycle of the Gulf Fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae) and Passiflora is their host plant.
Watch for the chewed leaves, the frass (poo) and the chrysalids.
Expect a cat-tastrophe when predators like the California scrub jays, European paper wasps, and praying mantids appear and the 'cats disappear.
The circle of life...
Attached Images:
A Gulf Fritillary caterpillar on a passionflower (Passiflora) leaf. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Munch, munch, munch! A Gulf Fritillary caterpillar is chomping away. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This image shows a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar, a chrysalis and an adult. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Dorsal view of a newly eclosed Gulf Fritillary nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)