Image by Eco Heathen via Flickr

Butterflies as you know are beautiful and delightful creatures. But did you know some incredible facts about these ‘nature’s angels’ like… …

• A caterpillar grows to about 27,000 times the size it was when it first hatched out of its egg.
• A full grown butterfly can be as tiny as 1/8^th of an inch or even a gigantic 12 inches.

• A butterfly’s wings are actually transparent. It’s their iridescent scales which overlap one another that give a butterfly its color.

• Butterflies might be well over 3500 years old, for Egyptian frescoes at the Thebes show representations of butterflies.

• There are about 24, 000 identified species of butterflies.

• The top speed that butterflies can fly is 12 miles an hour.

• It’s a myth that the butterfly or caterpillar spins a cocoon. Actually, the growing caterpillar sheds its skin at least 5 times – through a process called molting; because unlike the human skin, their skin doesn’t expand or stretch to accommodate the body and therefore it must shed it and grow a new one – and once they shed their last skin a pupa is revealed, the outer surface of which hardens and forms the chrysalis which protects the caterpillar as they transform inside into a butterfly.

• Butterflies need a body temperature of at least 86 degrees to fly.

• Butterflies can see red, yellow and green colors.

• Because butterflies need a very warm body temperature to take flights, which is more or less deficit in Antarctica, it’s the only continent where you won’t find a butterfly. As a matter of fact you won’t even find moths there.

• The longest lifespan of an adult butterfly is that of the Brimstone Butterfly. 9-10 months.

• A butterfly’s skeleton is on the outside of its body – exoskeleton. This protects it and keeps water inside its body so it doesn’t dry out.

• Butterflies have six legs and feet. The taste sensors are located in the feet which explain why the butterfly must stand on its food to taste it.

Image via Wikipedia

by Adam Fulford

As your butterfly garden begins to attract various types of butterflies, you’ll begin to spend more and more time watching them closely, studying them and involving yourself with these lovely creatures. You’ll soon notice the peculiar behavioral traits that these butterflies exhibit.

Feeding

Nectar the sweet honeydew like liquid that flowers produce and which are available inside the bulb of the flowers called ‘nectaries’ is the primary source of food for butterflies. It’s this same nectar that humming birds, bees and other insects and bugs feed on. High in sugar, this nectar provides energy for the butterfly in its flights.

A butterfly does not have a mouth to chew with. In its place however, it has a long antennae-like straw called a proboscis and it’s through this proboscis that a butterfly sucks out the nectar from the flower. Interestingly, a butterfly first tastes its food - the nectar - with its feet. It lands on the flower and tastes the nectar before it begins to drink.

Butterflies also feast on rotten fruits, plantain, animal dung, pollen and water.

Basking

We human beings are warm blooded. Our blood and body temperatures are self-regulated. Which means we can function effectively even in cold climates. But even then, we all need the sun to warm us and give us energy, as do all animals and birds.

Cold blooded animals and other creatures however, do not have the luxury of a self-regulated body temperature. Hence they, more than any of us, need the sun’s rays to warm up the body, the blood and the muscles and draw much-needed energy to function normally.

Like the butterfly. Being cold blooded the butterfly must depend on the sun’s rays to warm up the body and the muscles in their wings and draw energy needed for flight.

Butterflies are not tolerant to extremes in temperatures. When it’s just warm, not too hot, they fly. Ideally, they prefer temperatures between 70 and 90 degrees. When the temperatures soar above that the butterflies seek shelter in the shade. But, if the temperatures dip below 70 degrees, the butterflies seek a warm rock or wall where they can bask in the rays of the sun.

Basking means, they sit with their wings flattened out and face the sun. The flattened wings position is the most common basking position and normally employed by butterflies with dark areas on their wings or with dark, black bodies or by those butterflies whose wing bases are darker than the edges. And then, there are some butterflies that have light colored wing edges who use their wings to reflect the sun’s rays to its body.

Puddling

Besides nectar, butterflies need water, minerals, salts and nutrients. And how do they get the intake they need? They sit at the edges of small puddles, patches of wet mud and sand and obtain their requisite dose of these much-valued nutrients. This is called ‘puddling’.

These minerals, salts and nutrients are essential for successful mating and reproduction. Normally more male butterflies puddle than females, passing the nutrients through their sperm to the females who in turn use them for reproduction. Experts also claim that these nutrients also help in producing the sexual attractants - pheromones -that males use to attract females.

Patrolling and Perching

In order to mate, male butterflies seek out female butterflies. From a height these male butterflies patrol the areas likely to be populated by females who are either feeding or laying eggs. Since butterflies do not have a sharp vision, the male butterfly has to fly in closer to examine another butterfly that he perceives to be a female. And, if his hunch is right, the male begins to court the female.

There are some butterflies however, who use a different strategy. These males perch themselves on tall plants, trees or even on walls along the edges of streams where female butterflies are likely to frequent. Once they spot another butterfly, they move in closer to examine it and if it indeed is a female the courtship begins.

If in either of these two strategies it turns out that the other butterfly is another male, then the original butterfly will chase away the latter, thus safeguarding its territory.

Mating

Courtship and mating rituals differ from species to species. In general, the male butterfly flies above or behind the female releasing his sexual attractant chemical - pheromones. The male in this case is more animated and frisky, fluttering its wings a bit more than normal. The female however, is calm and steady in her flight path. If the female decides to mate with the male she’ll gently alight on a plant or on the ground. The male lands besides her and takes the ritual to the next level by touching the female’s antennae or even her feet. He moves closer alternating his wing movements to keep the female interested. Finally, they copulate by joining the tips of their abdomens. They might even take flight in the joined copulating position.

But there are times when the female avoids the advances of males. She makes her rejection known by physically avoiding contact with the male by positioning her abdomen in such a way or spreading her wings in such a manner as to make physical contact impossible. She may even release anti-aphrodisiacs to counter the pheromones the male releases. Finally, as a last act of rejection, the female might take flight, flying spirally upwards until the male gives up the chase.

Egg-laying

As we learned earlier, an adult female butterfly will only lay her eggs on specific plants which will provide food and nourishment for the just-hatched caterpillar. These are called host plants. Visual signs like shape of the leaf and color do help in the search but we know that butterflies do not have a good sense of sight. They must therefore depend on their other senses. One such identifier is the scent of the plant.

The female butterfly then does a peculiar thing. She’ll land on the leaf and drum on the surface of the leaf, thus scratching it. This releases scents which confirm her decision that it is after all the right plant on which to lay her eggs.

Image via Wikipedia

by Adam Fulford

Butterfly host plants are those specific plants that the female adult butterfly hunts and seeks to lay her eggs on. So, she’s not only looking for nectar producing plants to quench her thirst but is also looking for those specific plants whose leaves can serve as growth food for the tiny, just-hatched caterpillar who cannot travel far to find the food it needs to grow. And the adult butterfly will therefore only lay her eggs on these plants. If she chooses the wrong host plant and the leaves of that plant cannot be used as food for the just-hatched caterpillar, it’ll not survive.

And, for the just-hatched caterpillar to grow into a full-grown caterpillar before it wraps itself into a cocoon (in readiness to emerge later as a butterfly), it has to eat voraciously. This means large ungainly patches of chewed-on leaves become visible on the host plant. Many gardeners do not like this because it renders the plant unsightly. But that’s nature. And it’s one of nature’s phenomena at work.

If there are no host plants in your garden, fewer butterflies will visit you. The solution then is to locate the host plants in an area not easily visible and yet just a short distance from the nectar plants. As a matter of fact, many trees, shrubs and other plants found growing in any common yard are suitable for caterpillar growth. For example Black Locust trees are a host plant to Silver-Spotted Skippers. Basswood trees are host plants for Tiger Swallowtails and Question Marks.

But Other Than These, Let’s Look at Some Other Important Butterfly Gardening Host Plants:

• Alfalfas are host plants for the caterpillars of Dogface Butterflies and Clouded Sulphur butterflies.
• Asters can serve as host plants to Dainty Sulphurs.
• New Jersey Tea plants are a host plant for the caterpillars of Spring/Summer Azure butterflies.
• Cassia plants sometimes serve as the host plants for Cloudless Sulphurs, Little Yellows and Sleepy Oranges.
• Hickory trees are a host plant for Banded Hairstreaks.
• Oak trees also offer sustenance and home for Banded Hairstreak and Red-spotted Purple caterpillars.
• Banded Hairstreak caterpillars sometimes even use Walnut trees as their host.
• Hibiscus flowers sometimes serve as host plants to the caterpillars of Common Checkered Skippers and Gray Hairstreaks.
• Mallows are a host plant to the American Painted Lady, Common Checkered Skipper, Gray Hairstreak and West Coast Lady.
• Marigold is a host plant for Dainty Sulphur and Black Swallowtail caterpillars.
• Milkweeds are very popular with butterflies. Monarch and Queen butterflies are born on milkweeds and attain all of their nourishment from these bountiful plants. Pearly Everlasting serves as a host plant to the American Painted Lady.
• Verbena is a host plant to the Common Buckeye caterpillars.
• Vetch flowers are hosts to Eastern Tailed Blue, Orange Sulphurs and Wild Indigo Duskywings.
• White Sweet Clovers sometimes serve as the host plants for the caterpillars of Orange Sulphur butterflies.
• Sunflowers are hosts to American Painted Lady caterpillars and Silvery Checkerspots.
• Turtlehead is a host plant for the caterpillars of the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly.
• Plantain is a host plant to Baltimore Checkerspot and Common Buckeye.
• The host plants of American Painted Ladies are Borage, Burdock, Everlasting, Hollyhocks, Knapweed, Mallow, Sunflower and Wormwood.
• Black Swallowtails free themselves from cocoons on Carrot, Dill, Fennel, Parsley, Queen Anne’s Lace or Rue plants.
• The host plants of Cabbage White butterflies are Mustard, Broccoli, other plants in the Cabbage family or Nasturtiums.
• Clouded Sulphur caterpillars munch on Alfalfa, Clover, Senna or Cassia peas and nestle their cocoons into these plants.
• The food and host plants of Common Checkered Skipper butterflies are hibiscus, Hollyhock, velvet-leaf and mallows. Common Buckeye use Heliotrope, Monkeyflower, Plantain, Sedum, Snapdragon, Verbena as their host plants.
• Dainty Sulphur caterpillars feast on Asters, Spanish Needles, shepherd’s needle, sneezeweed, fetid marigold and cultivated marigold, then lay their cocoons on their host plants.
• Dogface Butterfly caterpillars’ host plants include False Indigo, Indigo Bush, Prairie Clover, alfalfa, clovers and indigo.
• Eastern Comma caterpillars favor Elm, Hop Vine or Nettle.
• Eastern Tailed Blue caterpillars gobble Clover, some types of pea plants, Vetch.
• Fritillaries butterfly caterpillars use Violets as their host plants. Tiger Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars feast on Aspens, Sycamore, Tulip Tree, Wild Black, Cherry, Willow and Yellow Poplars.

Image by jpc.raleigh via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

Your basic objective in making a butterfly garden is to attract butterflies to your garden, keep them there when they come visiting and encourage them to keep coming back again and again. And how do you do this?

As we learned earlier, we make sure our garden features both nectar-producing plants as well as ‘host’ plants for the caterpillars. When selecting nectar-producing plants, remember that butterflies are active from spring until late summer and therefore it’s imperative to have flowers in bloom throughout the season if we’re to have any chance of attracting them. Care must therefore be taken to plant annuals and perennials which provide a steady supply of nectar. Flowers with multiple florets produce large quantities of nectar and thus are ideal to attract butterflies.

Some butterflies are attracted by plants of some colors and even seem to avoid plants of other colors. The Silver Spotted Skipper likes lots of colors — red, pink, blue, purple, white - but not yellow flowers. Sulphur Butterflies, on the other hand, prefer yellow flowers.

Short-tube flowers of lantana, phlox, and verbena have ‘nectaries’ that are at the base of the tube and are readily available to butterflies. Pipevine Swallowtails have long proboscises and feed on the nectar of bergamot flowers. And so do birds

The nectar of Alfalfa flowers appeals to Checkered Whites, Dogfaces, Red Admirals and Southern Dogfaces. Incidentally, these plants play host to the caterpillars of the Orange Sulphur butterflies. Alfalfas are a host plants for the caterpillars of Dogface Butterflies and Clouded Sulphur butterflies.

Many butterflies favor the nectar of Asters, including American Painted Ladies, Cabbage Whites, Common Buckeyes, Common Checkered Skippers, Dainty Sulphurs, Eastern Tailed Blues, Fritillaries, Fiery Skippers, Red Admirals and Eastern Tailed Blues. Asters
sometimes serve as host plants to Dainty Sulphurs.

Banded Hairstreaks and Eastern Tailed Blue butterflies will likely grace gardens with White Sweet Clover Flowers. Skippers and Swallowtails butterflies stretch their long proboscises down the long tubes of Beardtongue Flowers to sip nectar. Little hummingbirds also like the nectar of these flowers.

New Jersey Tea plants provide nectar to the Banded Hairstreak and Peck’s Skipper. They are a host plant for the caterpillars of Spring/Summer Azure butterflies. They also attract insects that hummingbirds like to eat. Cloudless Sulphur butterflies sometimes sip the nectar of Cardinal flowers, as do hummingbirds. Everlasting Peas provide nectar to the Silver-spotted Skipper.

Goldenrod flower nectar provides meals for Giant Swallowtails, Little Yellows, Milbert’s Tortoiseshells, Orange Sulphurs and American Painted Lady (By now you might have noticed that the American Painted Ladies like almost everything). Hibiscus flowers provide nectar to Cloudless Sulphurs, Common Checkered Skipper and Monk Skippers. Honeysuckle Flowers attract Giant Swallowtails and Northern Cloudywings.

Milkweeds are very popular with butterflies. Monarch and Queen butterflies are born on milkweeds and attain all of their nourishment from these bountiful plants. Milkweeds also provide nectar for Monarch Butterflies, Queen butterflies, American Painted Ladies, Banded Hairstreaks, Black Swallowtails, Fiery Skipper, Giant Swallowtails, Northern Cloudywing, Orange Sulphurs, Pearl Crescents, Peck’s Skippers, Zebra Swallowtails, Silver Spotted Skippers, Red Admirals and Question Marks.

Rest assured, you can attract a whole host of butterflies to your garden.

Image via Wikipedia

by Adam Fulford

Just like you drink through a straw, a butterfly drinks through its proboscis - which is like an in-built straw. A butterfly doesn’t have a visible, exterior mouth. So it cannot chew its food. Hence it must drink its food.

A caterpillar has a visible, exterior mouth and it chews on its food - the leaves. But once the caterpillar goes into its cocoon and emerges as a butterfly it loses its mouth and in its place is the proboscis - a long, tubular straw-like extension shaped like an antenna. When it’s not feeding, the proboscis is coiled inward.

Flowers position their pollen at their neck and at the tip of their petals. A butterfly searching for nectar first lands on the flower and tastes the nectar with its feet. Then it swings around and extends its proboscis down the tube to drink. The pollen sticks to the feet and the throat of the butterfly. When the same butterfly visits another flower, pollination takes place.

Flowers’ Passageway to Their Nectar

Butterflies with short proboscises chose plants with short passageways to their nectaries’, such as lantana, phlox and verbena flowers. Whereas, skippers and swallowtail butterflies stretch their long proboscises down the long tubes of Beardtongue flowers to sip nectar. (Even hummingbirds with their long beaks like the nectar of these flowers).

Flower Shape

Generally, butterflies prefer plants that have lots of flowers clustered in a flat-top. Firstly, this ensures a ’splash’ of color, drawing the butterfly to it. Secondly, with flat-topped cluster flowers, butterflies are assured of a good fill.

Petal Size

Butterflies like flowers with large petals — it’s easier to land on them. Which means, they do not have to hang precariously, flapping their wings (something the hummingbird does so energetically) to drink the nectar. And as mentioned above, this helps the flower too in pollination.

A number of flowers are just for butterflies. The nectar of such flowers is at the base of tubes that are too narrow for other bugs to use.

Some butterflies are attracted by plants of some colors and even seem to avoid plants of other colors. The Silver Spotted Skipper likes lots of colors — red, pink, blue, purple, white - but not yellow flowers. Sulphur Butterflies, on the other hand, prefer yellow flowers.

There are about 24, 000 species of butterflies. Every one of them is different in looks, tastes, colors, shapes. How many can you attract to your garden?

Image by Sourav_85 via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

It’s great to have a butterfly garden and watch those fluttering ‘rainbows of color’ flitting gracefully from flower to flower a short distance away from you. But here’s how you can get the butterflies to visit you really up close as you sit on your front porch or stand at the window.

You hang a butterfly feeder near to where you sit or stand. A butterfly feeder not only supplements the butterflies’ nectar supply but will also attract them to visit you really close. You can either purchase a ready-made butterfly feeder or even make one at home yourself. It’s quite simple.

Find a small empty jar with a lid. Puncture a hole into the lid. Now stuff the hole with cotton.

Mix 8 parts of water with 1 part of honey. (Some experts say sugar is more effective than honey, but frankly, both serve the purpose). Heat the water and honey mixture in a pot. Stir well. Then let the pot stand to cool off.

Once the mixture is cooled enough, pour it into the jar. Take some brightly colored cloth pieces. Cut and fold them into oval pieces, stick them like the petals of a flower to the rim of the jar.

Now hang the jar sideways, at the edge of your porch or at your window. Make sure the drops of honey-water mixture seep out through the cotton. Attracted by the bright cloth petals on the jar, the butterflies will soon come visiting and drink the ‘artificial’ nectar. (By hanging the jar sideways, you ensure that the butterflies have a perch to sit on while they drink).

Image by lewiselementary via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

Interested in making your own butterfly garden? Great! You and I, we’re already friends.

This is what you do. Step out, look around you. Look at the kinds of butterflies that visit your neighborhood. Slowly. Don’t rush these things.

Note down the flowers that the butterflies frequent. Find out the names of the plants. Note the colors, the fragrances, the dimensions, how big are the clusters of the same type of flowers. (You’ll notice you won’t see just one individual plant or two). Note down the height of the plants, how they’re placed in relation to one another. Do you see a little patch of moist mud, a little puddle of water that the butterflies drink water from or the flat rock or wall around it? Take a long look at how butterflies behave. You could supplement your findings by reading books about butterflies and their habitats, checking out internet sites, talking to butterfly experts or professionals (they’re called lepidopterists) or you might also find dedicated organizations in your county or province that are associated with butterfly watching and study.

Now you’re ready to begin.

Perhaps, it would be best if you plant the seeds in small pots or containers while you ready the soil in the patch of land you’ve earmarked for the butterfly garden. This way the seeds are protected from birds and simultaneously the soil is turned to make it ready for the sapling. (Be sure you have the right soil that fosters healthy growth of these plants).

Choose a sunny spot. Butterflies love to bask in the sun and are not tolerant to the cold. Give them a shelter away from the wind and rain. Make sure there’s a flat piece of rock or wall where butterflies can bask and obtain energy in their wings before they take flight. Place small, moist mud puddles within the garden so the butterflies can extract water and salts from them.

You should know the bloom times of different plants and try to plant in such a way that there are enough flowers in bloom throughout the butterfly season. Butterflies generally surface from early spring and are visible right through until autumn. Make sure you grow plants that provide nectar as well as ‘growth food’ for the caterpillars throughout this period so as to keep them coming to you. Annuals bloom throughout the season, providing an unending supply of nectar. Perennials too are great butterfly attracters.

Butterflies do not have strong eyesight but they have a strong sense of smell. Rather than plant individual saplings that produce individual pinpoints of color, you should plant clusters of the same saplings so the butterflies see large splashes of color. Generally, butterflies prefer white, purple, red, orange and yellow. Some plants grow tall, some short. Plant the taller ones behind the shorter ones. Make sure that the flowers of the plants you plant are good sources of nectar. Avoid those large, bulbous showy flowers. They are poor nectar sources. Ideally, flowers with multiple florets produce a good quantity of nectar and butterflies are naturally attracted to them.

In all this, do not forget that you also need to have ‘host’ plants in your garden. These are plants that the adult butterfly lays her eggs on and whose leaves the emerging caterpillar can chew on and grow before it forms a cocoon around itself and metamorphoses into a butterfly. Remember, butterflies are basically searching for these two very important types of plants: nectar producing plants and ‘host’ plants.

And your objective is to watch them.

Image by S.L. Sagan via Flickr

by Adam Fulford

A butterfly garden is basically a garden of specific plants which not only yield you some of the most beautiful and fragrant flowers, they also return an array of some of the beautiful butterflies you’ll see.

Watching a butterfly flitting gracefully from one flower to another can be one of the most beautiful and delightful experiences that nature can offer you and your loved ones. And, if you so choose, you can have a myriad of such ‘nature’s colorful angels’, cavorting in your garden patch, right in front of your window or porch. That’s precisely what a butterfly garden can give you.

A good butterfly garden is meticulously planned to accommodate plants whose flowers are rich in nectar as well as those specific plants that female adult butterflies look for, to lay their eggs on. Such a garden will have not just one or two plants bearing a type of flower but rather, clusters of plants of the same flower. In a good butterfly garden you’ll see various colors especially red, yellow, purple and orange. You’ll see flowers that allow the butterfly to sit on their petals; you’ll see the taller plants arranged behind shorter ones, you’ll see rocks and stones for butterflies to bask on and little puddles of water and patches of moist mud that butterflies so often frequent.

And it’s not difficult to make a butterfly garden. There are scores of sites on the internet and books and periodicals that’ll inform you about the various but simple considerations you’d need to make in order to experience the delight of watching butterflies up close in your own butterfly garden.

Did you know that butterflies do not pay as much attention to humans as birds do, (birds are always flighty and nervous) which means you can sit up close and observe them… like that equally calming experience of watching goldfish in a bowl. And don’t be surprised if a butterfly or two mistakes the bright T-shirt you’re wearing to be a source of nectar and visit you up close.

With so-called urbanization and development, many of the butterfly’s natural habitats have been sacrificed, when all they need are those flowers they can feed on and those plants they can lay their eggs on. Butterflies feed on nectar – the sweet honeydew that many flowers produce. And they look for those plants to lay their eggs on that provide the leaves that the newly-hatched caterpillars can chew on and grow. Do they ask for much? No! But somehow man in his self-important ways seems to have denied even such a simple convenience for one of nature’s most beautiful creatures. But then, you don’t have to be like that. Perhaps you could create your own butterfly garden and invite these ‘flying rainbows’ to your doorstep.

A good butterfly garden teaches you that life is about all of nature’s creations, not just of our own selves. It’s a treat for the eyes and the soul. You don’t need more.