A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix





A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
Florida designated the zebra longwing butterfly (Heliconius charitonius) as the official state butterfly in 1996. The zebra longwing butterfly is found throughout Florida in hardwood hammocks, thickets, gardens, and particularly in the Everglades National Park. The zebra longwing butterfly is characterized by long black wings with distinctive thin stripes and a slow, graceful flight.
It makes a creaking sound when alarmed. Zebra longwings feed on nectar and pollen. They are the only butterflies known to eat pollen, it collects on it’s proboscis.
Most butterflies can only sip fluids with their specialized mouth parts, but the Zebra Longwing takes some pollen as well as nectar. Their saliva enables them to dissolve the pollen and to take their nutrients. Pollen is very nutritious, rich in proteins, unlike nectar which contains almost no proteins, just sugars. This diet allows the butterflies to prolong their lives and also enables them to continue producing eggs for several months. As a consequence they are more dependent on flowers than other types of butterflies and this makes them good pollinators. They feed on a wide range of flowers; some of their favorites are lantana, shepherd’s needle (Bidens). It is also possible that they develop a sort of symbiosis with those plants that provide their preferred pollen.
This is probably why they have a long lifespan (about six months, as compared to a more usual one month for other butterfly species).
The zebra longwing butterfly lays its eggs on passion vine leaves. Passion vines contain toxins that are consumed by the caterpillars, which make the adult butterflies poisonous to predators.
The longwing is not so common in northern part of the state. The zebra longwing roosts in a flock with its kin. The longwing sleeps so soundly that you can literally pick it off its roost and return it later, without waking any of the rest of its family.
The longwing is so comfortable with its perch, it also faithfully returns to the same perch every night. During the day her flight is slow, feeble, and wafting, but she can quickly dart to shelter if threatened or approached. Zebra longwing and other heliconians have a reputation for being very intelligent insects.
They have a social order when roosting; the oldest ones choose the best places. They also gently nudge the others early in the morning to get going. Another interesting characteristic of heliconian butterflies is that they can remember their food sources and return daily to the plants where they fed previously, a behavior known as trap lining. The memory is so strong that if one shrub in their route is cut down they return to the location again and again only to search in vain.
The zebra longwing butterfly begins mating right after it emerges from its chrysalis. The caterpillar has a white body with long black spines and a yellow head.
If weather conditions are right, the zebra longwing butterfly can go from egg to butterfly in a little over three weeks.
Next week we will explore the majestic Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.
A Life to Live
Melody Hendrix
The yellow butterflies you see around fall are the Sulphur butterflies. There are many variations, but all look similar.
Cloudless sulphur, a common year-round resident in much of peninsular Florida, the cloudless sulphur rapidly extends it range northward each spring and eventually establishes breeding colonies as far north as Canada and the Midwest by the end of summer. As cool autumn weather approaches, adults from the final generation begin a return migration, coming back to the Deep South to overwinter.
You may see them in most open, sunny areas such as roadsides, old fields, gardens, pastures, and fallow agricultural fields.
Larval Host Plants: Cloudless sulphur caterpillars use a various plants in the pea family including, Cassia tree, Partridge pea, sickle-pod senna, sensitive pea, wild senna, coffee senna and Christmas senna or golden shower. Cloudless sulphurs may be found in all habitats when migrating, but breed in disturbed open areas where their caterpillar host plants and nectar plants are found. They have relatively long tongues and can reach the nectar of some tubular flowers that some other butterflies cannot. They have such a sweet fuzzy face and big eyes.
Males patrol for females throughout the day and especially around nectar. The male initiate courtship by making contact with the female’s wings either with his wings or legs. A receptive female usually flicks her wings and then closes them. Unless the female assumed a “mate refusal” posture (open wings and raised abdomen)
Eggs are laid singly on the host plant. Larvae live exposed (no shelter) and feed on foliage, buds and flowers.
At night, on dark, cloudy days, and during storms, adult cloudless sulphurs roost singly on leaves. Although the adults are brightly colored when flying, they seem to disappear against similarly colored leaves in the shade. The roost site may be low to the ground in shrubs with lots of foliage or high up in the leaves of trees.
The fall migration of cloudless sulphurs is the easiest to observe butterfly migration in the southeastern United States. (Monarchs are migrating at the same time, but they generally fly too high to see and are heading for Mexico. During fall, the numbers of cloudless sulphurs crossing an east-west line bisecting the Florida peninsula at the latitude of Gainesville may approach the numbers of monarchs overwintering in clusters at highly localized sites in Mexico.
The seasonal migrations of cloudless sulphurs and monarchs are similar in that each species is abandoning large and favorable summer breeding areas that have lethally low winter temperatures for more favorable climates to the south. In the spring, surviving adults head northward and soon repopulate the summer breeding areas. In both species, the northward migration is evidenced by the reappearance each summer in the breeding areas they abandoned the previous fall.
It’s always so interesting to me how plants defend themselves against herbivores. Caterpillars can be quite destructive to it’s host plants. So many host plants grow extrafloral nectaries on the leaf petioles to attract predacious ants for protection.
Different plants grow different shaped cups, but they are all filled with nectar for the ants. The ants in return protect the plants from the herbivores. I find this fascinating how nature works.
Raising these yellow beauties is easy if you have the host plants, which for me is the Cassia tree. A beautiful tree that blooms in the fall in a fantastic display of yellow unusual looking blooms.
It’s chrysalis is much different than the monarch. You can see the butterfly colors through it the day before it emerges.
Next week we will explore our own Florida state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing.
A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
It will take 9 – 14 days for the butterfly to emerge once it makes it’s chrystalis. Mark it on the calendar. You will see it turn from green to almost black with color showing through. It will emerge the next morning. Probably very early. If the chrystalis stays black for more than 2 or 3 days. It’s dead. Remove it.
A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
God might just have designed things in our world to bring us pleasure – that it might have given Him pleasure to create such a diverse and interesting world of color and intricacy to point us to Himself!
I feel close to God when I am in my butterfly garden.
Anyone can create a welcoming haven for your local butterflies. It takes some planning, but the rewards are great! You can even attract butterflies in a small container garden on a porch.
Let’s start with finding out what zone you are at the link below.
http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/
Each butterfly species has it’s own nectar flowers and host plant. Find out what your common butterflies are and what are their nectar flowers and what are their host plants. Some plants may not be possible for you to grow, so pick at least two species of butterflies that you can provide for it’s life cycle. For the Monarch, it’s nectar plant and it’s host plant is the same. The milkweed.
There are several kinds, but the most common is the tropical milkweed. It is not native or the best one, but it’s rare to find the swamp milkweed which is native. One advantage of the Tropical is that you can grow it from seeds or preferably cuttings. You will need a lot of it. The caterpillar is a voracious eater, capable of consumming an entire leaf in less than five minutes. They gain about 2700 times their own weight.
Here is a link to butterfly garden designs.
The location of your garden is important. It should be an area where no insecticides such as malathion, Sevin and diazinon will be used. Even benign insecticides are lethal to butterflies.
It should have some shade but mostly sun. Butterflies feed in the sun. They are cold blooded and need to warm up and dry out from the dew in the morning.
Try to choose plants that bloom at different times of the year for continuous flowers.
Here is a link below for butterfly nectar plants in Florida
http://www.nsis.org/butterfly/butterfly-plants-nectar.html
These are the plants I have had the most success with.
Milkweed, tall red Pentas, Mexican sunflower, Firebush, Firespike, Jatropha, Butterfly bush, blue Porterweed, coral Porterweed, Lantana, Salvia, Parsley, Dill, Plumbago
If you can, plant for each stage of the butterflies life.
Here are some fun pampering you can do for your butterflies
Make a puddler
Many species of butterflies congregate on wet sand and mud to partake in “puddling,” drinking water and extracting minerals from damp puddles. In many species, this “mud-puddling” behavior is restricted to the males, and studies have suggested that the nutrients collected may be provided as a nuptial gift during mating. It provides salts and minerals for egg making.
Fill a container or bird bath with play sand and add about 2 tablespoons of manure. Mix well and push to one side to leave an emply area for some tiny gravel and flat rocks. Pour enough water in to soak the sand, but don’t let water sit above the sand or the rocks.
Feed them a fruit treat. Some butterflies enjoy the sweet nectar that comes from fragrant fruit.
http://butterfly-lady.com/butterflies-and-fruit/
The cute butterfly houses you see with the slits in them are a nice decor, but the butterflies do not use them.
A group of butterflies is called a “Flutter” Often times you will see a female with more than one male following her scent. Eventually one will win and they will fall to the ground and connect the tips of their abdomen. The male will transfer his package of sperm. Sometimes they fly connected for a while. The female has about 100 eggs to deposit on her host plant.
She lays one egg at a time and each are fertilized as they pass by the sperm package. Only about 2 percent will survive. Ants, wasps and other pests will devour most eggs and caterpillars.
Next week we will learn all about the Monarch butterfly. See ya then…
A Time to Live
Melody Hendrix
I thought I would do another series for a few months. I would like to share with you a true earth treasure. The butterfly.
A little creature that whispers Gods glory and gospel. The apostle Paul says we are works in progress and that our transformation from the old to the new is a struggle. All of creation is overflowing with living attributes paralleling the divine principles of life and struggle. Look at the transformation of the butterfly from egg to larva to butterfly, a supreme work of nature.
Monarch
It wasn’t until my admiration for them turned to passion that I wanted to photograph and learn the details of a butterflies life. It wasn’t just their magical beauty in my garden that thrilled me, but their life story. The one our God wrote for them. Oh, what they go through to live and multiply. I call their life cycle “from mushy to majesty”. The marvel of metamorphosis.
Sit in my butterfly garden with me in the weeks to come. I would like to share with you how you can enjoy butterflies in your yard, how to photograph them and to enjoy their beautiful story. Each week I will showcase a different Florida butterfly.
I am going to start with information about planting a successful butterfly garden next week. Then show you how to enjoy their entire life cycle by raising your own. The first butterfly showcase will be the Monarch since they are the most well known and are the easiest to attract and raise.
See ya next week.