Butterflies of Altamont Farms

01

Monarch

Danaus plexippus

Year-round

Deep orange panes held in heavy black veins, with a black border double-spotted in white. The one everybody knows, and the one people most often confuse with the Queen. If the veins are thick and black, it is a Monarch.

When to look

All year, with the biggest numbers October through December when migrants come down the peninsula.

Host plant

Milkweed, and nothing else. The caterpillars cannot eat any other plant, which is why we put it in.

Nectar

Milkweed, firebush, lantana, salvia, and porterweed.

Movement

Migratory — numbers swell and move on

What it does for the farm

Planting milkweed is what turns a Monarch from a passer-through into a butterfly that breeds here. One caution comes with it: if any of the milkweed is tropical — the red-and-yellow Asclepias curassavica sold at every garden center — cut it to the ground each fall. Left standing through winter it holds butterflies back from migrating and builds up the OE parasite in the patch. Native milkweeds die back on their own and never have the problem.

02

Queen

Danaus gilippus

Year-round

The Monarch's darker cousin — rich chestnut-brown instead of orange, dusted with white spots across the forewing and without the heavy black veining on top. On the same milkweed patch in South Florida you will usually count more Queens than Monarchs.

When to look

All year. Often outnumbers the Monarch here.

Host plant

Milkweed, the same as the Monarch. The two share the patch.

Nectar

Milkweed, firebush, lantana, and shepherd's needle.

Movement

Resident — breeds here all year

What it does for the farm

Queens are the resident half of the milkweed planting. Monarchs come and go with the season; Queens stay and breed here all year, so the patch keeps earning after the Monarchs have moved on. Both are worth checking for eggs and caterpillars — that is the fastest way to know a planting is actually working rather than just looking good from the driveway.

03

Gulf Fritillary

Agraulis vanillae

Year-round

Bright orange with black spotting on top, but turn one sideways and the underwing is the real show — long silver-white panels laid over brown. Fast, restless, and hard to keep in frame long enough to look at.

When to look

All year, heaviest late summer into fall, when numbers move south along the coast.

Host plant

Passionvine. Corkystem and maypop both work, and they will strip a vine to stems and come back to it.

Nectar

Firebush, lantana, porterweed, and zinnia.

Movement

Migratory — numbers swell and move on

What it does for the farm

Passionvine on a fence line is all this one needs, which makes it the easiest butterfly to add to a property on purpose. Expect the vine to get chewed down to bare stems in a good year — that is the vine doing its job, not a pest problem, and it comes back from the roots.

04

Zebra Longwing

Heliconius charithonia

Year-round

Long narrow black wings striped in pale yellow, and a slow floating flight that looks like the butterfly is being carried rather than flying itself. Florida's state butterfly. They roost together on the same twig night after night and come back to it.

When to look

All year. Most visible in the shade along the river.

Host plant

Passionvine, shared with the Gulf Fritillary.

Nectar

Firebush and porterweed — and pollen, which almost no other butterfly eats.

Movement

Resident — breeds here all year

What it does for the farm

Zebra Longwings eat pollen as well as nectar, and that protein lets them live for months instead of the two or three weeks most butterflies get. A long-lived butterfly working the same route through the same flowers day after day is worth more to a planting than a dozen short-lived ones. They want shade, so the hammock along the river is what keeps them here.

05

Cloudless Sulphur

Phoebis sennae

Year-round

Big and lemon-yellow, and almost never still — they cross a field in a fast straight line and do not stop to be looked at. In fall you can stand in one spot and watch a steady one-way stream of them heading south.

When to look

All year, with heavy southbound flights September through November.

Host plant

Cassia and senna, including native partridge pea.

Nectar

Long tubular flowers, firebush especially, and red salvia.

Movement

Migratory — numbers swell and move on

What it does for the farm

This is the one that pays off the firebush. A Cloudless Sulphur's tongue is long enough to work deep tubular blooms that shorter-tongued insects cannot reach into, so it pollinates flowers most of the others simply skip. Put senna anywhere on the place and you get them — the caterpillars are yellow-green and lie stretched along the midrib of a leaf, nearly invisible.

06

Swallowtails

Papilionidae

Year-round

The big ones, with tails trailing off the hindwings and a gliding flight nothing else here has. Several species turn up rather than one: the Giant Swallowtail, black and yellow and the largest butterfly on the property; the Black Swallowtail; and the Palamedes, which belongs to wet hammocks like the one along the river.

When to look

All year, most numerous spring through fall.

Host plant

Depends which. Giants use citrus and wild lime. Blacks use parsley, dill, fennel, and native water cowbane. Palamedes use redbay and swamp bay.

Nectar

Firebush, lantana, porterweed, and pentas.

Movement

Resident — breeds here all year

What it does for the farm

Swallowtails are big-bodied and carry more pollen per trip than anything else on this list. The trade is that Giant Swallowtail caterpillars — the brown-and-white ones that look exactly like a fresh bird dropping, which is the whole idea — feed on citrus. An established tree carries them without real harm, so we leave them be. Spraying them off is how a place ends up with no swallowtails.

07

White Peacock

Anartia jatrophae

Year-round

Pale, nearly white, with faint orange trim and a pair of dark eyespots on each wing. It flies low and fluttery and rarely gets above knee height. Anywhere the ground stays damp, this is the butterfly you see most of.

When to look

All year, heaviest through the wet season.

Host plant

Frogfruit and water hyssop — low spreading plants that grow in damp ground and in unsprayed turf.

Nectar

Frogfruit and shepherd's needle.

Movement

Resident — breeds here all year

What it does for the farm

The cheapest butterfly on the property, because its host plants are already growing in the low wet ground and in the parts of the turf nobody sprays. Frogfruit gets treated as a lawn weed most everywhere else. Leaving it alone in the damp corners is the entire management plan for this species, and the river keeps that ground wet without us doing anything.

08

Skippers

Hesperiidae

Year-round

Small, stout and fast — they dart rather than flutter, and they perch with forewings and hindwings held at different angles, which nothing else does. The hooked tips on the antennae are what separate a skipper from a moth. Two are common here: the Long-tailed Skipper, blue-green bodied with trailing tails, and the orange Fiery Skipper out in the grass.

When to look

All year.

Host plant

Grasses for most of them. Legumes for the Long-tailed Skipper, which is the bean leafroller if you grow beans.

Nectar

Shepherd's needle, lantana, porterweed, and close to anything else in bloom.

Movement

Resident — breeds here all year

What it does for the farm

Skippers are the pasture's own butterflies. Most are grass feeders, so a good population is a direct read on grass that has not been sprayed. They are easy to overlook and they do a large share of the actual pollination here simply because there are so many of them. The Long-tailed Skipper rolls a bean leaf shut to pupate inside it — if that turns up in the garden, it is cosmetic.

Monarch

Queen

Gulf Fritillary

Zebra Longwing

Cloudless Sulphur

Swallowtails

White Peacock

Skippers

Nectar is the easy half