{"id":1794,"date":"2011-07-12T11:53:10","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T15:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2011-07-12T12:04:57","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T16:04:57","slug":"ten-butterflies-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/2011\/07\/ten-butterflies-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Butterflies for Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Butterfly identification is a learning process.\u00a0 It is easier to start with the large, brightly colored species and gradually work down to the small, drab ones.\u00a0 Here is what to look for on some of the most common species of butterflies in North America.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tiger Swallowtails<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just about every area has at least one of the five kinds of tiger swallowtails found in North America.\u00a0 It is a large butterfly, bright yellow with black wings edges and black stripes that run parallel to its body.\u00a0 Its tiger stripes give it its surname while swallowtail describes the narrow black wing extensions that trail behind it.\u00a0 Plant some wild cherries, such as chokecherry or black cherry (the caterpillar\u2019s host plant), in your yard and thrill to the sight of these spectacular beauties taking nectar at your garden lilies.<\/p>\n

\"\"Black Swallowtail<\/strong><\/p>\n

These large black-and-yellow butterflies are at home in towns and gardens.\u00a0 Black swallowtails are found throughout the eastern two-thirds of North America.\u00a0 Plant a patch of parsley or dill in your garden and there is an excellent chance that you can watch the brilliant green and black-striped caterpillars grow to adulthood \u2013 even if your garden is the terrace of a high-rise apartment in a major city!\u00a0 Males of the two swallowtail species are drawn to the tops of hills, where they wait for females.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cabbage White<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our small white butterflies are almost all cabbage whites, an abundant and widespread species.\u00a0 One of only two non-native butterflies in North America, the cabbage white is now perhaps our most common butterfly.\u00a0 Its caterpillars feed on a wide variety of plants, including mustards and of course, cabbage.\u00a0 Look for black dots on the wings, one for a male and two for a female.<\/p>\n

\"\"Orange Sulphur<\/strong><\/p>\n

Replace the white of the cabbage butterfly with lemon yellow to orange color and you have the orange sulphur.\u00a0 The sulphurs are medium-sized butterflies whose colors range from white to orange.\u00a0 This species is one of the most abundant in North America, sometimes swarming in vast numbers in alfalfa fields.\u00a0 It is found throughout the United States and most of Canada.\u00a0 Its close relatives, including the common and widespread, clouded sulphur, are pure yellow above, with no trace of orange.\u00a0 The related giant sulphurs are much larger, almost the size of swallowtails, while the related \u201cyellows\u201d tend to be smaller.<\/p>\n

\"\"Spring Azure<\/strong><\/p>\n

The brilliant blue of spring azures is a wake-up call for the winter weary butterfly enthusiast.\u00a0 Azures are one of the first butterflies to emerge in the spring to greet the new season and are found over most of the continent.\u00a0 Some of the 30 other species of blues are difficult to distinguish from this one, but only the tailed blues are likely to be found in your garden.\u00a0 They are darker blue above with fine tails. <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"Mourning Cloak<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mourning cloak is another large butterfly.\u00a0 It is the only black (or very dark brown) butterfly with yellow wing edges.\u00a0 Because it overwinters as adults, they are another early appearing butterfly.\u00a0 They can sometimes be seen on an extremely warm day in January.\u00a0 They will become plentiful again in mid-July.\u00a0 The adults do not usually visit flowers but are partial to tree sap and various decaying organic matter.\u00a0 The caterpillars feed mainly on willows.<\/p>\n

\"\"Question Mark and Comma<\/strong><\/p>\n

These butterflies are named for the silvery marks in the middle of the underside of their hind wings, which resemble certain punctuations marks. <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"Monarch<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the best-known butterfly in North America.\u00a0 Large and brightly colored in orange and black, these butterflies cause everyone\u2019s head to turn as they migrate southward in large groups in the fall.\u00a0 They are such strong fliers that they colonized New Zealand, Australia, and the Canary Islands!\u00a0 Adult monarchs are distasteful to birds because the caterpillars feed on milkweeds and accumulate toxic chemicals.\u00a0 Because these butterflies retreat to Mexico for the winter, they are not common around here until late June.\u00a0 In fact, most entomologists agree that the \u201creturning\u201d butterflies are offspring of those that flew south last fall.<\/p>\n

\"\"Viceroy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although unrelated to the monarch, the viceroy takes advantage of the monarch\u2019s unpalatability by mimicking its appearance.\u00a0 At first glance, it looks very similar to a monarch butterfly.\u00a0 It is slightly smaller than the monarch, with which its almost identical orange and black pattern is easily confused.\u00a0 However, unlike the monarch, the viceroy has a black stripe on the hind wing that crosses the other lines.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"Gray Hairstreak<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hairstreaks are wonderfully vast group with more than 1,000 species found in the American tropics.\u00a0 About 60 species are found in North America, the most widespread being the gray hairstreak.\u00a0 Its caterpillars have one of the broadest tastes of any butterfly, but seem especially to enjoy various mallows, including hollyhocks.\u00a0 Some other hairstreaks have a similar bright orange spot on the hind wing below, but few are as evenly gray as this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Butterfly identification is a learning process.\u00a0 It is easier to start with the large, brightly colored species and gradually work down to the small, drab ones.\u00a0 Here is what to look for on some of the most common species of butterflies in North America….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[144,149,152,146,151,150,153,147,145,148],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs-insects","tag-butterflies","tag-cabbage-white","tag-gray-hairstreak","tag-monarch","tag-mourning-cloak","tag-orange-sulphur","tag-question-mark-and-comma","tag-spring-azure","tag-swallowtail","tag-viceroy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1827,"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pfeiffernaturecenter.org\/nature-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}