New Favorite: the Atala Butterfly
The Atala butterfly is a new favorite of ours in the garden. Its flutter offers an aqua shimmer with a flash of red dancing amongst the plants. Watching this butterfly’s life cycle is amazing because it is brilliant and uniquely colored through each stage.
The coontie is the only host plant for the caterpillars, or the larvae stage. With the rise of urbanization or expansive construction in Central and South Florida, the habitat and host plant of the Atala became scarce. As a result, the Atala butterfly became so rare that it was thought to be extinct. A colony was found on an uninhabited island in Miami and the University of Florida took on the project to introduce the butterfly back into various parts of Florida. A few years back, the Brevard Zoo introduced a group to our area and little by little the butterflies began to travel and reproduce throughout the county. Now can you understand why I’m so excited to see them in our garden?!?
You may be wondering how to attract these beauties to your garden. Gardenistas and gardeners can do this by creating a welcoming environment that will entice the butterflies to come and stay! Start by adopting healthy gardening practices that are pollinator friendly, like some of the ideas below.
Healthy Garden Practices
Choose native plants when possible
Don’t use insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, ect.
Don’t deadhead, prune, harvest everything
Leave a wild or “unruly” area
Buy from reputable local garden centers/sources
Next, choose plants that can be a host or nectar source. The host plant I’ve already covered above - the coontie, which is North America’s only native cycad. The Atala butterfly forages for flowers that can easily reach the nectar source with their short proboscis (tubular mouthpart) and they prefer the color white. Examples of their favorites are Wild Coffee, Spanish needle, Scorpion’s tail, Beautyberry, Florida swampprivet, White indigoberry, Saw palmetto, and the Cabbage palm.
Here are some Atala photos from our garden:
Atala Butterfly laying her eggs on the coontie plant.
After the Atala eggs hatch, a vibrant caterpillar emerges and begins munching away on the coontie leaves.
More Atala caterpillars!
Once the Atala caterpillars are full, they move on to the next stage - the pupa or chrysalis stage.
More of the Atala Pupa or Chrysalises. I find it so interesting that they congregate throughout their life cycle. Notice how they all “stick” to groups on the same leaf. The caterpillars and butterflies are not aggressive to one another and almost seem social.
The final stage of the butterflies’ life cycle - the metamorphosis into adulthood. Spreading their wings and flying!