Tag Archive | Butterflies Central Florida
Delightful Discovery!
My adorable wife Anne comes through the front door excitedly and announces that there are caterpillars on our milkweed plants, but they are not monarchs. She tells me they look similar but seem to be another species. I follow her to the corner of our house where a sickly milkweed plant is struggling to survive […]
The Butterfly That Migrates to Florida
It is early November in central Florida and although the evenings are cool, the days warm quickly with the rising sun. By mid-morning Gulf fritillaries, orange brown butterflies, visit Firebush shrubs in our backyard. These butterflies pour into the Florida peninsula for the winter retreating to frost free areas in the southern part of the […]
Welcome Monarchs!
It is December here in Florida and time to set up the Christmas tree and decorate it. As I hang ornaments of cardinals, geese, chickadees and other birds on the tree’s branches, I catch a glimpse of an orange butterfly outside our living room window. Peering out the window for a closer look, I was […]
The Monarch Mimic? Or is it the Other Way Around?
At one time this butterfly was thought to mimic the poisonous monarch butterfly to protect itself from being eaten. Monarch caterpillars eating milkweed absorbed substances called glycosides that are not only distasteful, but harmful to the heart of predators eating them. The non-poisonous viceroy butterfly gained protection from predators by mimicking the monarch. But in […]
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