Speakers: Dr. Sonia Altizer, Professor and Head, Department of Entomology, University of Georgia; Jeremy Rhoden, Master Gardener Volunteer Coordinator, UF/IFAS Extension, Marion County, FL — Florida State Coordinator, Great Southeast Pollinator Census
Moderator / Host: Becky Griffin, UGA Extension (co-host: Rich Braman)
Duration: 1:29:24
Series: Great Southeast Pollinator Course
Webinar Date: June 30, 2026
Introduction
Becky Griffin: All right, so I’m really excited for this week. Butterflies is the theme, and if you guys followed any of our social media, I went out looking for some butterflies earlier today. So as Rich mentioned, please use the Q&A panel for questions and don’t hold those back, because we’ll be sorting through. And if you’re having problems with the technology or anything like that, or you need to speak with us, the chat is the best place. And please go ahead and put where you’re calling in from or where you’re coming from. First week we had somebody from France and somebody from Sri Lanka, so that’s always kind of fun. All right, we are going to get started here.
I’m glad you like our pollinator Spotify playlist that is available to anyone, and I know a lot of schools actually use it during the pollinator census. Okay. All right. So we are doing butterflies today. One of my favorite topics. Who doesn’t love a good butterfly? And I’m extremely thrilled to have these two speakers today. Our first speaker is Dr. Sonia Altizer. And she is a professor and she’s head of the Department of Entomology at UGA. She is known internationally for her butterfly lab and her butterfly work. So we’re really fortunate to have her at UGA. She explores butterfly behavior, migration, conservation, interactions with parasites in the environment, with a particular focus on monarchs. Y’all may notice my monarch on my hat today. I also love them. She is very good at presenting and sharing her love and passion with her knowledge of the incredible diversity of butterflies found across our region, and helping people recognize habitats, host plants, and ecological connections. So welcome, Sonia. The floor is yours.
Sonia Altizer: Thank you. Well, thank you very much to Becky and to Richie for putting this series on. It’s a pleasure to be here today, and also with Jeremy Rhoden, to talk about butterflies as part of the Great Southeast Pollinator Course. And I’ll just do a check. I think my screen looks good. Okay, great. And so it’s probably going to be obvious that butterflies are absolutely my favorite group of animals, and they are truly amazing creatures. And I feel incredibly lucky to be able to study, as part of my career, something that is just so amazing and that I love so much.
Let’s see, I’m gonna just try to figure out how to do the slide advance. Okay, there we go. All right, and I wanted to note, you might have recognized in the previous slide here this butterfly, which does occur in the southeastern US, but it is not one of our most common butterfly species. So if you’re quizzing yourself, this was the zebra swallowtail butterfly. And one of the reasons why it’s not super common is because it’s closely associated, or found — the caterpillars only feed on leaves of the pawpaw tree. And they’re rarely found far from the pawpaw tree. And the pawpaw tree is the largest fruit that’s native to North America. And it’s the only temperate member of the custard apple family. And so this slide just shows what the zebra swallowtail caterpillar looks like, and what its host plant looks like. So just to kick us off, there’s going to be lots and lots of slides featuring different butterflies in the southeast. And as you see them, you can kind of quiz yourself and see if you know what species is being shown.
Monarchs as an Entry into the World of Butterflies
Sonia Altizer: So this is a different butterfly species, and this is one that I think all of us recognize. This butterfly here is the monarch butterfly, and its migration, ecology, behavior, and interactions with a debilitating parasite are all things that I have studied throughout my career.
And when I started grad school 20 years ago, I was looking for a research project, and I really wanted to study, believe it or not, animal diseases and insect diseases. But I didn’t know where to start, and a professor in my department at that time, who later became my advisor, lost an entire captive colony of monarch butterflies to this mysterious disease. And one day she just dropped a pile of dead, deformed butterflies on my desk and said, “Sonia, you like studying insect diseases. Maybe you can study this one.” And so I did, and I figured out what was killing the butterflies and how to test for it and how common it is out in the wild. And I’m still studying that today. And so it’s amazing to me that this one chance event changed my life. Because I fell in love with monarchs and their amazing migration. And I’ve been studying them ever since. And I watch them day in and day out. And every time I see them, I see something slightly different or new. And, you know, to me, studying monarchs never gets old.
And I think monarchs serve as an entryway into the amazing world of butterflies and their diversity, habitats, and ecology and conservation. They certainly did for me. And I think they do that for a lot of people. And you think about the fact that children in the US and Canada, like, they learn about monarchs from an early age. They raise them in their homes or in their classrooms to learn about life cycles and geography and nature and the mystery of life. And there’s over a dozen children’s books written about monarchs. And I think they symbolize for many of us the fact that not just monarchs but butterflies in general are great ambassadors for the insect world. They’re friendly, they’re easy to rear and handle, they’re highly visible.
Why Butterflies Matter
Sonia Altizer: So they’re large, they are active during the day, they’re boldly colored, they’re elegant fliers, and they have amazing behaviors. And on top of that, they don’t sting, bite, stink, or spread diseases. So again, they’re just a fascinating group of organisms and a great ambassador for insect conservation. And this slide, again, incidentally, shows some common butterflies in the southeastern U.S., and you should recognize a few of these species. If you are a butterfly enthusiast, you might see the common buckeye, black swallowtail, monarchs, tiger swallowtails, and painted ladies shown here in this slide.
So people often ask me, like, why do butterflies matter? Well, they’re not the powerhouse pollinators that bees are, although they do serve an important role in pollination, and I’ll talk about that in a few minutes. But I think there’s lots of other reasons why butterflies are important too. Like, why should we care about butterflies and protecting them? And I think one of the first things I like to tell people is that, you know, butterflies are — because they’re so highly visible — we have incredible data sets monitoring butterfly abundance and diversity. And they are really important environmental indicators. So they’re sensitive to habitat change. We have a lot of data on their abundance and diversity, and they can tell us, you know, when things are in trouble and when we need to be concerned when we look at trends over time.
Another reason why butterflies are important, again, is that they’re cultural icons. People feel a strong spiritual and emotional attachment to butterflies. They symbolize many things for people. Rebirth — I’ve shown here in this slide the spring azure butterfly, which is one of the earliest native butterflies to emerge every spring. And, you know, in many places in North America, it’s viewed as the ultimate harbinger of spring, symbolizing the end of winter and the rebirth of new growth in the summer. And then again, I think because of that, they are great conservation ambassadors. And in fact, the Xerces Society, which we’ll hear a little bit more about later this afternoon, I think really utilizes butterflies as a great tool for inspiring people to care about insects and insect conservation.
Lepidoptera, Wing Scales, and the Dust Myth
Sonia Altizer: So of all the insect groups, I might mention, butterflies are the most extensively monitored in the United States, as well as in Europe and other parts of the world. And I think that’s relevant to the Great Southeast Pollinator Census. And one of the main reasons that they are so extensively monitored is, again, because they’re active during the day, but more importantly, they’re large and they’re brightly colored. And this slide shows some of the intricate color patterns that we see visible in butterfly wings.
And some of you might know that butterflies are members of the order Lepidoptera. And that translates to — you know, literally translates to — scale wing, Lepidoptera. And butterfly wing membranes are actually clear or see-through, but layered over top of them on both sides are scales that lie like roof shingles on top of that wing membrane. And a close-up of those scales is shown here in this slide. And these scales are often brightly colored, and they serve an important role in signaling to other butterflies. So they signal information, for example, to potential mates, about their species identity and their quality. They’re also important for predator avoidance. They can provide camouflage, and they can also provide warning coloration to predators. And because they can sometimes slough off easily, predators that grab a butterfly by the wings often end up with a mouthful of scales instead of the actual meaty parts of the butterfly. These wing scales also provide important roles in thermoregulation — so regulating their body temperature — and, believe it or not, in aerodynamics of flight.
And I want to mention the dust myth briefly. You probably heard from the time you were a child that you shouldn’t pick up a butterfly, because you notice that if you hold a butterfly by the wings, you’ll get scales on your fingers that look like dust, and that that can kill the butterfly. That’s generally not true. If butterflies are really roughly handled and they lose a lot of scales, that’s not great for them. But most butterflies, you know, being handled and losing small numbers of scales — that happens to them on a routine basis. And it’s generally not going to hurt them or kill them.
Wing Pigments and Structural Color
Sonia Altizer: One thing that I think is super fascinating about butterflies is their wing pigments. And butterflies have kind of two ways that they make color in their wings. So they can either have what I think of as like paint that’s laid just inside the outer part of each scale — so sort of like paint that gives them color — or they can have structural colors. And so I’ll tell you, for producing yellow and white parts of the wings, those pigments are called pterins, P-T-E-R-I-N-S. There’s another type of pigment called ommochromes that gives butterfly wing scales red, orange, or brown pigment. Parts of the wing that are black are produced by melanin pigment.
But then you might notice some butterflies have shimmering blues, greens, and iridescent tones, and these are generated by physics, not by true pigments. And these scale surfaces that are blue, green, and sometimes purple and iridescent feature microscopic ridges shown in the bottom center of this slide, that act as kind of diffraction devices for light, that bounce and scatter light to project intense and sometimes shifting colors. So you’ll notice that butterflies that are blue or green, that that color is iridescent and it changes with the angle of the light, which is super cool.
Butterfly Diversity in the Southeast and Worldwide
Sonia Altizer: So thinking about butterflies in the southeastern United States, we have incredible diversity of butterflies here in the southeast. There are nearly 200 butterfly species that commonly occur or that are found throughout the southeastern United States. And so part of that is because we tend to have long growing seasons and warm temperatures that promote multiple generations of butterfly life cycles. And in some places like South Texas and Florida, butterflies can persist there year-round. We also have a diversity of habitats. We have forests, wetlands, prairies, coastal plains — each of which can support a different assemblage of butterfly species. And then in each of these habitats, there tends to be a high diversity of both nectar and host plants. And you’ll hear more about host plants again throughout the presentation today.
So we have close to 200 butterfly species in the southeastern U.S. And then that represents a pretty good fraction of the 700 butterfly species that are found throughout North America. And most of those 700 are shown here in this slide, and they are grouped into the most common major butterfly groups. Again, you will probably recognize in the bottom left of this slide, these are the swallowtail butterflies that have — they’re really large in size, and they have these long projections on the tips of their hind wings. In the top left, these are the skippers. They are almost moth-like because they have chunkier bodies, clubbed antennae, and they tend to be smaller in size and a little bit less brightly colored. Right in the middle, these are the pierids. These are the cabbage butterflies that are yellow, orange, and white. Above those are the lycaenids and the riodinids. So these are the blues, the coppers, and the hairstreaks. And then the biggest family of butterflies, both in North America and around the world, are the nymphalids. These are the brush-footed butterflies. And these tend to be very brightly colored, very diverse. And some of our most beloved butterflies, like the monarchs, are members of this family.
So we have about 200 species in the southeast, 700 species in North America. And then this is just stepping back for even a bigger picture, bird’s-eye view of butterflies worldwide. Believe it or not, there are almost 20,000 species of butterflies that have been described to date around the world. And so this map just shows global variation in butterfly diversity and how it changes with both latitude and with elevation. And so the darkest green and blue sections of this world map have the highest number of species of butterflies. And then orange, pink, and white have relatively few species of butterflies. So again, you can kind of see, in the Southeast, yeah, we have a lot of butterflies here, but the parts of the world that really have the most butterflies are in the tropics. And so Central and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, and in the Pacific — and that’s really where global biodiversity of butterflies is the highest.
Butterflies vs. Moths
Sonia Altizer: And then finally, stepping back once more, butterflies again are members of the order Lepidoptera. And the vast majority of species in this order are not butterflies, but they are in fact moths. And so there are over 150,000 species of Lepidoptera. About 20,000 of those are butterflies, and the rest of those are moths. And, you know, a common question that people ask is, what’s the difference between a butterfly and a moth? They both have scales on their wings, big wings, they fly. And so some of the major differences between butterflies and moths are shown here on this slide.
Butterflies tend to have thin antennae with clubs, whereas moths have feathery antennae or thread-like antennae. Butterflies — these are generalizations, there are some exceptions to each of these rules, I will note — but butterflies are generally active during the day. Most moths are more active at dusk and dawn or during the night. Butterflies’ wings are kind of folded above their body when they’re at rest, whereas moth wings sort of lie flat against their body when they’re resting. Butterflies are a little bit more slender in body type, whereas moths tend to have chunkier bodies. And then most butterflies tend to be brightly colored. Relatively speaking, moths tend to be less brightly colored — although, again, there are exceptions, with some really incredibly beautifully colored moths. But for the presentation today, we’re really focusing on butterflies. But I want to give a shout-out to moths, because moths are also very important pollinators for a lot of plants, and their diversity, you know, sort of greatly overshadows the diversity of butterflies worldwide.
The Five Major Families
Sonia Altizer: So, thinking about, well, what are some of our most common butterfly species here in the southeastern United States? And there’s a lot of resources out there — guidebooks, posters, identification guides to butterflies. Again, the most common butterflies, if you’re out there looking and you have some experience in identifying species, you’ll recognize a lot of the species here in this slide. And I just want to call out, again, the most important groups of butterflies that we have here in the Southeast in terms of what you’re most likely to see. And I’ll tell you a little bit about their basic biology.
So when we think about butterfly diversity, I think, just as a starting point, I encourage people to learn the five most common families of butterflies that we would see in this part of the country. And really start there, and learn the differences between the major families, and then start learning the characteristics of the common species. And so the five major families are shown in this slide. In the top left, we have the swallowtails in the family Papilionidae. And these are some of the largest in terms of wing area, and they have those long tails coming off their hind wings. In the center, we have the whites and the sulfurs. These again have white, yellow, pale green, or light orange wings. The family name is called Pieridae. The top right are the gossamer-winged butterflies in the family Lycaenidae. And these tend to be some of the smallest in body size and very delicate looking. And they tend to be in three groups: the blues, the coppers, and the hairstreaks. The bottom left are the skippers, in the family Hesperiidae. And these are almost moth-like in appearance. They’re a little bit less brightly colored. They have chunkier bodies and smaller sizes. And they’ve got little hooks at the end of their antennae. And then in the bottom right are those brush-footed butterflies, the nymphalids, which are some of the most colorful and some of the most diverse species of butterflies that we’ll see out in the wild.
Common Southeastern Species and Their Host Plants
Sonia Altizer: So the top of the slide might be cut off for a few of you, but — you know, when I think about what are the most common butterflies in the southeastern U.S. that you’re likely to see if you’re just taking a walk outside in a place that has nectar plants and host plants for the butterflies. And I think it’s highly debatable, like, what are the eight most common butterfly species, but I think for most of us, we’re likely to encounter at least one or two of these eight species shown here in this slide throughout the course of the summer months.
And so I just have shown here what the adults and the caterpillars look like for these common species, and then what the host plants are. So we know, as adults, a lot of butterflies rely heavily on nectar. They also rely on water and other resources. And then the caterpillars tend to rely — they’re herbivorous or phytophagous, so they feed on plant material. And the butterflies are super cool in that they tend to be tightly associated with particular host plant species, where they form an intimate association where the adults will seek and lay their eggs on a particular type of plant, and the caterpillars will feed. It can sometimes be exclusively on a single species or a larger group of related species of plants.
And so monarchs, in the top left, we’ve got the bright orange butterflies, the striped caterpillars, and a lot of us know that they feed on milkweeds at the caterpillar stage. Eastern tiger swallowtails are those beautiful bright yellow and black striped butterflies. The caterpillars are green. They’re one of the tree-feeding butterfly species, so they’ll feed on tulip trees, sassafras, and several other tree species as caterpillars. Gulf fritillaries are one of the most gorgeous butterflies that we’ll see in the southeast, and those caterpillars feed on passion vine at the immature stages, and the adults are bright orange colored with silver spots on the underside of their wings. The cloudless sulfur is one of the most common pierid butterflies — brilliant yellow. The caterpillars are a little bit less exciting looking, and they will feed on members of Senna, or partridge pea. Red admirals, painted ladies, common buckeyes are also species that we’ll see out in nature. And they feed a little bit more on weedier host plant species — nettles, thistle. The common buckeye will lay its eggs on plantain, or Plantago, which is a common weed in pastures and lawns. And then in the bottom right, the zebra swallowtail, which feeds as caterpillars on pawpaws.
The Swallowtail Mimicry Complex
Sonia Altizer: I mentioned that the swallowtails are some of the largest and most brightly colored butterflies in the southeast. And one group that I think is incredibly fascinating is sort of in this mimicry complex, where we have spicebush and pipevine swallowtails, and to a lesser extent black swallowtails, that have this sort of very similar wing color patterns, where there’s a variation on a dominant black dorsal side of the wing with some yellow, blue, and red accents. And then we have the red-spotted purple on the far right, which is not a part of the swallowtail family, but its wing color pattern is remarkably similar to that of this swallowtail group.
And so the spicebush, pipevine, and black swallowtails feed on plants that are highly aromatic. And they can sequester compounds from these plants that they use as defensive compounds to deter predators or natural enemies. So spicebush swallowtails feed on spicebush, pipevine swallowtail caterpillars feed on pipevine, and black swallowtail caterpillars feed on parsley, dill, and fennel — all of which have very strong aromatic secondary compounds. And then the red-spotted purple, which is sort of the non-toxic mimic, feeds largely on trees at the caterpillar stage. This is a very interesting mimicry complex.
Identification Resources: BAMONA and Seek
Sonia Altizer: For those of you who are out looking at butterflies during your surveys, again, there’s a lot of pocket guides that are helpful. But I often find some online guides to be really useful resources. And one that I wanted to call out is the website BAMONA, which stands for Butterflies and Moths of North America. And so I’d encourage you to go to this website if you haven’t visited it before. It’s just www.butterfliesandmoths.org. And it has a lot of great resources there for butterfly enthusiasts and folks out monitoring butterflies. One nice resource is that it has a link to the top 20 butterflies of each state or each state and province in the US and Canada. And so you can go out and find like the Alabama top 20, the Georgia top 20, the Florida top 20 — just see, like, in general, what are the most common butterflies that are reported from each of your respective states. And then it also has a nice guide for identifying adult stages of butterflies as well as identifying caterpillars. So if you have a photograph, and you know the date and location where that photograph was taken, you can upload it and get a very highly reliable species ID for the butterflies that you’re seeing. So I would highly recommend this resource.
And then for a less technical but also very useful resource, one that I commonly use is the Seek app, which is associated with the volunteer participation database iNaturalist. And so if you see something — any type of organism, plant, fungus, an insect, a frog — you can take a picture of it, upload it to Seek. And I think nine times out of 10, it gives a pretty reliable species identification. Oftentimes I’ll have to double-check to make sure that it’s accurate, but this is another great resource when you’re identifying butterflies, again because they’re active during the day, they’re large in body size, they’re pretty easy to photograph, and they’re brightly colored, and they have very characteristic wing markings that tend to be diagnostic to the species level.
Life Cycles, Host Plants, and Chemical Defenses
Sonia Altizer: So I want to just give a little bit more background about butterflies before I pause for some questions, and talk a little bit about their life cycles, their biology, ecology, and behavior. And one thing I want to note — that we often note that butterflies undergo complete metamorphosis, like most other pollinators. So they have an egg, a larval, a pupal, and an adult stage. But I think, unlike many other pollinators, you know, we have this phenomenon where most caterpillars feed on only one or a handful of plant species. And so these common examples that we know, like monarchs feeding on milkweed as caterpillars, tiger swallowtails feeding on poplar, we have Gulf fritillaries feeding on passion vine, black swallowtails feeding on plants in the parsley family — these host plant associations as part of the life cycle is something that’s really distinct about butterflies.
And I think I have a slide with just a few of the associations that you might see in your backyard gardens. So, for those of us who are lucky enough to have spicebush in our yards, this is a spicebush swallowtail caterpillar with these super cool eye spots to kind of fool predators, or to startle predators and kind of warn them away. This is a Gulf fritillary caterpillar, again feeding on passion vine. I think most of these were taken right around my house in Athens, Georgia. These are black swallowtail caterpillars feeding on Queen Anne’s lace in the parsley family. Again, the monarchs feeding on milkweed. So we have these associations between — just one second. I’m going to get you water. I’m really sorry about that. I think I can keep going, though. We have these situations where these plants are producing chemicals called secondary compounds that stimulate oviposition and feeding.
Sorry about that. And some examples are cardiac glycosides, which are produced by milkweed, which actually stimulates feeding by caterpillars, and the caterpillars can sequester these compounds in their bodies and use them to defend themselves against predators. So it makes them taste bitter when predators try to eat them. And it also causes heart palpitations in vertebrate animals.
Lycaenid Caterpillars and Ants
Sonia Altizer: I want to call out one really cool aspect of feeding ecology in caterpillars that we see, again — just a second — that we see in a group called the lycaenids. So these are the blues and the hairstreaks. And these are ant-associated caterpillars, and the caterpillars look slug-like. And they have behaviors and organs that they can use to attract ants. And the ants can often come in and protect the caterpillars from other predators. The ants will get a benefit, which is the secretion of a sugary substance from the caterpillars. And in some extreme cases, the caterpillars trick the ants into taking the caterpillars into the ant colony and feeding the caterpillars ant larvae. And so there are actually some carnivorous caterpillars out there that feed on other insects at the larval stage, in this family of butterflies. Which is one of the most cool and fascinating examples of coevolution, I think, that exists in nature — are these associations between caterpillars in the family Lycaenidae and ants.
Okay, and then as adults, butterflies tend to feed heavily on nectar. And I think that’s something that you’ll hear a little bit more about later today. All right, you guys, I think I’m going to wrap up in just a minute so we can shift over to Jeremy. And I’m really sorry about — I got something caught in my throat. But we often think about butterflies as kind of being less important. Okay, I’m going to stop. Let’s switch over to Jeremy, and then maybe I can take questions later on. Sorry about that.
Becky Griffin: Oh, that’s fine. We’ve all been there. I mean, it’s for sure. So what we’ll do is, we have some questions coming in, but we’re going to wait till the end, and we’re going to kind of move along and let Sonia get some water. All right. So our second presenter is Jeremy Rhoden. Not only is he an amazing horticultural agent, he is also the Florida State Coordinator for the Great Southeast Pollinator Census. He is the Master Gardener Volunteer Coordinator for UF/IFAS Extension in Marion County, Florida. And he knows a whole lot about butterflies. I was able to travel with him to the UK to do some work, and he is definitely your go-to person for identifying butterflies for the census. So, Jeremy, I’m going to turn it over to you. The floor is yours.
Promoting Butterflies in the Landscape: Four Essential Resources
Jeremy Rhoden: Awesome. Thank you, Becky, and thank you, Sonia, for getting us started. I’m gonna just forewarn everyone in here, Becky set the bar really high for me. So I do love butterflies, and a lot of my experience with butterflies has been from just doing pollinator gardens in my own yard growing up, and then also throughout my career and my education in landscape pest and pollinator management. And also just being a master gardener coordinator with my awesome master gardeners — which I know some of you are on here. We have a great team who’s really into pollinators. And so that has allowed me to get more into the butterfly side of things too, as well as our bees. So today I’m going to go ahead and share my screen. Let’s see. Uh, da-da-da-da. All right. And I am gonna put it in presentation mode. All right. Is that showing up, Becky?
Sonia Altizer: Looking good, Jeremy.
Jeremy Rhoden: Okay, awesome. I don’t see the green box around the screen, so it’s throwing me off a little bit. All right. So, just to kind of tag along with what Sonia was talking about in terms of butterflies, we do have a great diversity of butterflies across the Southeast and across the U.S. for where we’re located. And so we’re going to just talk about how to promote butterflies in our landscape. And a lot of you know this already. We all know if we plant flowers, we likely will get butterflies in the yard. But that’s just one small part of attracting butterflies and really promoting a pollinator habitat for butterflies. So we’re going to talk about four essential resources that butterflies need in a habitat. And that includes our host plants, nectar plants, shelter and overwintering habitat, and also water and mineral resources.
Generalists vs. Specialists
Jeremy Rhoden: But before we get too much into that — I know some of you have probably heard of this before, probably even in previous webinars on here — but I want everyone to kind of take a step back and understand that all insects worldwide fall into one of two categories, and that can be either a generalist or a specialist insect. And some are either a generalist or specialist for their entire lifetime, or they might just be a generalist or a specialist during a certain time frame of their life.
So just to kind of go over the difference between these two groups of insects, I have this chart here that I found online, but it kind of summarizes this pretty great for these two groups. So in this case, with the generalist insect here, it gives the example of a brown marmorated stink bug. And you can see, in terms of its diet, it’s pretty wide, it can feed on multiple different plant families. Whereas with our specialist insects, for example the monarch butterfly, it has a very narrow diet. As a caterpillar, it can only feed on one species or genus, and we know that as the milkweed for monarchs. With generalist insects, finding host plants is very fast for them, because generally they can feed on a variety of plant tissue or plant foliage. So that’s generally not a problem. However, with specialist insects, this can be very slow. They have to use chemical cues to be able to find certain plants in the environment that they need to either lay their eggs on or to feed from.
In terms of toxic tolerance, generalist insects have a moderate detoxification system. It’s also pretty broad. So they’re not as great as our specialist insects, which have highly specialized mechanisms to neutralize those toxins. So butterflies — again, going back to monarchs and viceroys — those are a couple examples of butterflies that are actually toxic butterflies. It’s toxic for birds and lizards and things of that nature to feed on them, because of the toxins that they consume from the plant material they eat. But it’s because they have those highly specialized detoxification systems.
In terms of predator defense, generalist insects rely on camouflage, flight, or broad chemical deterrents. So you think about stink bugs, for example, and just how they blend into either tree crevices or into the foliage. Whereas a lot of our specialist insects, they have bright coloration, and oftentimes this is because they have those toxins in their body. So if you think about butterflies in general, especially going back to the monarch example, they fly around during the daytime where they can easily be seen with their beautiful colors by other predators, but yet they don’t often have to worry about that, because predators know that they are actually a toxic species. Now, this doesn’t mean there’s not predators that eat them. There are some predators that have evolved to be able to still eat those type of insects. So just keep that in mind as well.
With extinction risk, for generalist insects it’s pretty low, because they have plenty of options to feed from. So they don’t have to worry about that. They also blend in very easily, but they are still competing with a lot of others. With specialist insects, their extinction risk is very high, because they are so dependent on those species of plant foliage that they have evolved with over time. And as urbanization increases and loss of habitat increases, we are seeing a decline in specialist insects, a lot of our pollinators, over time. And then finally, with competition, with generalists, they face high competition because they’re generally in large numbers. Lots of generalist species, they compete with one another. But with our specialist insects, generally they have lower competition, because they have their specific host plant they’ve evolved with.
So that’s just to kind of give you a quick overview of generalist versus specialist insects. Now, why that’s important: because in the southeast United States, which is where we’re all from on here today, we have nearly 30 to 40,000 native insect species in our part of the country. And entomologists estimate that roughly 90% of those plant-feeding insects are specialists. And when we say plant-feeding insects, we’re talking all pollinators. So that includes all of our lepidopteran species, our butterflies and moths, as well as our hymenopterans, like our bees, wasps, things of that nature — all of our pollinators. So those are plant-feeding insects. So if you think about that, if 90% of those insects are specialists, meaning that they are depending on specific host plants, and those host plants are declining big time because of loss of land or loss of habitat, urbanization, pesticides, whatever it might be — you can see where there’s a high extinction risk for our pollinators, because they almost all fall into that specialist category.
Resource One: Host Plants
Jeremy Rhoden: So this kind of brings us to the first of those four things we mentioned that is important for pollinator or butterfly habitat, first one being host plants. So as I mentioned, most of them are specialists, so they depend on a specific plant species or genus that will provide the essential food and shelter required for insects to complete their life cycle. In the case of monarchs, as I mentioned before and I have here as an example, only as their immature stage or larval stage are they specialists. They depend on milkweed as a caterpillar. But also as an adult, when they’re looking to lay eggs — or oviposition — they’re looking for that milkweed as well. But in terms of feeding as an adult, they’re more of a generalist. They can go to any flower that they can find nectar on and feed from those. So you can see that’s a great example there of an insect species that is not a specialist necessarily for their entire life. But when it comes to their larval stage as well as oviposition, they are a specialist.
So some other things about host plants. If you are a part of any type of gardening group on social media accounts — I always talk about this in all of my pollinator trainings — you can literally sit there and see people who are trying to do good for pollinators. They want to attract butterflies for their garden. So they go to the store and they buy something like tropical milkweed, or pipevine, or something of that nature to plant in their landscape to get butterflies there. But they’re not expecting, or they’re not prepared, to see the foliage eaten by the caterpillars. And it’s funny, because almost all of us have learned all the way back in elementary school the whole stages — and Sonia was just reminding us about the whole four-part life cycle of butterflies. And so we know that at some point in time they are a caterpillar, and they have to develop into a pupa stage to basically evolve into a butterfly, or a moth for that matter. And so they have to be able to have foliage to feed from. But you can watch people on these gardening groups post, you know, “something is eating all of my milkweed and I don’t know what it is. I planted this for the butterflies and now it’s just being consumed by these worms that I don’t know what they are. I’ve tried spraying it and treating it and they just keep coming back.” And it’s just one of those things where it’s like, oh no, don’t do that.
And so, understanding that when you plant plants that are host plants for these butterflies, you’re going to have feeding occur — and that’s what you want. If you want butterflies, you want feeding to occur. But many of these plants have evolved over time to withstand foliar damage. In fact, many of them can go up to upwards of 90 to 95 percent of defoliation and still recover from that and come back. I have milkweed that does come down to the ground every year and comes back — our native milkweeds in Florida — and they do really well. You get some every once in a while that don’t; you just have to replant, but that’s part of it. The butterflies are still happy.
Be mindful about clutch sizes. And by that I mean, like, when butterflies lay eggs, the amount they lay at one time and in one place, that’s considered clutch sizes. They can be different depending on the butterfly. So I keep bringing up monarchs because we’re very well familiar with those. Monarchs tend to go to this leaf and lay an egg, and then they go over to this leaf and lay an egg, and they might go over to this leaf and lay an egg. Whereas the pipevine caterpillar here that you’re seeing on the left, they tend to come up to this pipevine here that I have growing in my yard, and they will lay about 50 eggs at one time, all in one cluster. And so you might not ever realize them, and then one day you come out and your pipevine bush is completely covered in these caterpillars. And it’s because they have a larger clutch size than what we see in monarchs. And likewise, you can see that in other butterfly species as well.
Trees Host the Most
Jeremy Rhoden: Something else to note is that trees tend to host the most. This was a common saying I’ve heard repeatedly, and if you’re not familiar with it — I remember, way back when I first started getting into more of the pollinator gardening, my whole front yard was completely shaded by oak trees. But in my whole backyard, I had flowers everywhere, and I had butterflies everywhere, but I didn’t see those in the front yard. And so whenever I became a registered monarch way station, I was like, oh, why am I going to put this in my front yard for my neighbors to see, when they see I have nothing in bloom in the front yard? And I had to really step back and think about, well, I have these trees here. And when you look up live oaks, or just oaks in general, they are actually — in Florida alone, I know I can’t speak for all the other states, but I know in Florida — they are a host plant to over 330 lepidopteran species. And that’s just in Florida alone. And they’re native; many of our oak trees are native across Florida. So don’t think that just because you have a shaded yard with oak trees or maple trees or whatnot that you can’t have a pollinator habitat. Because little did I know that my front yard, which was completely shaded with four live oaks, was actually doing more good than the backyard that’s planted with a whole bunch of flowers. So just keep that in mind as well, and remember that trees tend to host the most.
The Xerces Society Native Plant Finder
Jeremy Rhoden: The last thing on this slide I want to show you is that on the Xerces Society website — many of you may be familiar with this already — let me pull it up for y’all. It’s not coming over. There we go. When you go to this website here, there is a spot on Xerces Society where you can put in your state. And once you do and you search — so I’m gonna just choose Florida here, just ‘cause that’s where we’re from — it has a really great document that you can download, and it shows you a whole bunch of native plants that are good for Florida (or obviously they’re native, but are good) for pollinators, with their common name. It tells their bloom time — and we’ll talk about why this is important here in a second. It talks everything from the life stages where it helps with the butterflies, the form of flowers they have, how much sun they need, the type of soil. And then it also has these additional details here. And you can kind of see there’s a little caterpillar on here that tells if it’s a larval host plant, if it’s good for bees, butterflies, if it’s a great pollinator plant, if it’s good to be around pets. So it’s a very great resource, and there’s a whole bunch of information on here, and again, you can search for that by state. And this is just one of many resources that Xerces Society has. I would highly recommend searching their website. They have a lot of great resources on there.
Resource Two: Nectar Plants
Jeremy Rhoden: All right, and so I wasn’t sure the website was going to work, so I had that here as an example. All right, so that was about host plants. So now let’s talk about nectar plants, which is the second thing you need to have in your habitat. So nectar is a sugary substance created by plants to promote pollination services, and that is all that it is for. It serves no other purpose in the plant, and it actually takes a lot of energy for plants to create nectar.
Some of you may have heard of the famous Darwin orchid that was found in Madagascar by Charles Darwin, and he famously hypothesized that that flower could only be pollinated by some type of insect with a really long mouthpart. And so it’s really cool, that flower and the moth evolved together over time. And because it takes so much energy for that plant to create the nectar, it made it to where not just any bug or insect could fly to the flower to get that nectar. It requires a special relationship with that moth to be able to make that happen. Florida has a similar orchid called the ghost orchid. It’s not quite as long of nectaries as your Darwin orchid, but it is a similar thing that we have down in the Everglades. It’s a pretty neat flower.
So something to think about in terms of the nectar plants is, remember, butterflies as larvae or larval individuals have chewing mouthparts. Whereas when they are adults, their mouthparts change completely, and they now have a siphoning, straw-like mouthpart. So we often hear about people calling caterpillars worms or things like that, and they think of them as pests because they see damage to their plants by these individuals. But then when they see them as butterflies and moths flying around, they’re all happy that they have pollinators in their yard. So we’ve got to remember that they are all still the same species. They are all beneficial, you know, as a caterpillar versus an adult as well. It’s just their life cycle, and we’ve got to be able to support that all the way through.
So in the adult stage, they are looking for those nectar plants. And so, again, adult butterflies tend to be more generalist in their adult stage. And so we want to make sure that we are able to provide to them during that time. So butterflies prefer plants with a landing pad. This doesn’t necessarily have to be like the coneflowers we saw in the previous example, which has a really well-defined landing pad, but it can also be a cluster of flowers, or inflorescence, like this umbel — lantana flower you see here that the butterfly is sitting on top of. As long as they have something they can sit on and station themselves, they’re able to feed, and that’s very helpful for them. Now, there’ll be exceptions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen zebra longwings feeding on firebush, which are not always in clusters like this. But generally speaking, they like to have landing pads.
Butterflies are highly attracted to reds, pinks, and purple. This is kind of opposite of bees, which cannot see the color red. They only see a color gray with that. But butterflies are highly attracted to that red color. But again, they will come to all sorts of flowers. If they find it’s a nectar source, they will continue to come to it, but red is something that’s going to really attract them. Butterflies also generally have longer tongues than bees, so they can get to long tubular flowers oftentimes. And when you think about choosing plants for the landscape that are nectar plants, think about choosing those with various shapes and colors, including long narrow flower tubes and those with landing pads.
So if you’re looking at this really quick, there’s a couple examples we have. And sorry for the blurry picture on the right, but we have coral honeysuckle and also coneflower on the left. If you were to take a guess — I kind of already gave it away in the last slide — but which one would be the best option for butterflies? Obviously the one on the left with the landing pad there. Now, again, that doesn’t mean you will not see butterflies feed on the coral honeysuckle. You’re just likely going to see them more often at a plant with your landing pad.
Aiming for 75% Native
Jeremy Rhoden: All right, so the other thing I’ll mention about plants in the landscape, when you’re thinking about host and native plants — most of your host plants are going to be native, but that’s not always the case. There are non-native plant species out there that you can buy, but try your best to aim for native. Just think about trying to aim for 75% or more of your landscape being native. Try to aim for making it the dominant species in your landscape. You’re going to find some non-natives that you really love, and you’re going to find pollinators love them, and that’s okay, as long as they’re not invasive. Avoid invasives altogether. But still try to aim for 75% or more. That’s kind of what we promote here in Florida with UF. Just because we’re trying to make the native species the dominant species again. If you look at the common landscape, we know that is not always the case. But there’s a lot of beauty in our native species — and not only beauty in the sense of what they look like, but also the biodiversity that they attract to our landscapes.
Native pollinators do require specific nutrients and pollen from specific plants. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to look at pollen under a microscope, or even look up websites where you can see the pollen granules under microscopes, they’re each very unique. And so there are some pollinator species, including butterflies, that feed on pollen. We know that bees feed on pollen and nectar, whereas most butterflies only feed on nectar. But there are exceptions to this. An example is our statewide butterfly in Florida, the zebra longwing. It actually feeds on both nectar and pollen. And because of that, it actually can live longer than many butterfly species, for that reason. So just something to think about. And then also, native plants provide shelter and overwintering resources for species that have adapted with it.
All right, also with natives, when you’re thinking about purchasing natives, often this can be difficult. So trying to find native plant nurseries, if you know of any around — one thing that I’ve heard, and I would echo this, is if you can try to visit that nursery at least once per season and just take note of what you see that’s in bloom. Look at the different floral shapes, color, sizes, and just note those things down. See if they have a place in your landscape. If they do well in your soil and your lighting conditions, and see how you can integrate them into the landscape. You know, if you’re like me, it’s probably not a good idea to go to the nursery without a plan, because then you fill your entire car full of new plants and you’ve got to plant over the weekend, even when you’re out of space. So maybe just take some notes when you go in.
Resource Three: Shelter and Overwintering Habitat
Jeremy Rhoden: All right, the next part of your habitat is thinking about shelter and overwintering habitat. So obviously with this, you want to think about weather conditions like rain, wind, cold, and heat. You’ll see butterflies puddling — we’ll talk a little bit about that in a second. But so moisture is good, having some water is good, but also rain droplets can be detrimental on butterflies. So having foliage with large leaves or places to get under. We like to promote saw palmettos or just palm trees in general in Florida, because when they flower they actually are a pollinator magnet. Even though a lot of folks don’t think of palms as being a pollinator plant, it’s actually a pretty phenomenal pollinator plant, and they provide great shelter foliage for pollinators.
In terms of predators, you’re going to see things like lizards, birds, and wasps. And here’s the thing — I’m kind of getting a little ahead of myself, but the more you promote butterflies in your landscape, the more birds you’re going to have, the more lizards you’re going to have, the more predatory wasps you’re going to have. And the more you try to interfere with that — and I have been there, and so I totally understand if you have been one of those people swatting away at the predatory wasps because they’re flying around your monarch caterpillars. I totally understand the feeling of that. But at some point I had to learn that you have to promote the full circle of life. You can’t just have a high increase on butterflies and not expect to have their natural predators come as well. And those predators are also pollinators in many cases. So you have to be prepared for that.
Think about roosting and resting areas. You’ll see butterflies rest on rocks, or large rocks, or crevices of things. Consider planting in layers, from ground covers all the way to trees. So have some shrubs in there, low plants, bedding plants, ground covers, and just have those layers within the landscape. That really helps not only in terms of them having resting and roosting places, but also for them having shelter and also protection from the cold. Grasses are another thing that people often don’t think about. There’s many ornamental grasses, even native ornamental grasses, that are host plants to different butterfly species. So those can be something very different in the landscape, with a different texture and a different feel and a different look altogether, that can make your landscape give something beautiful and also still be a part of your pollinator habitat.
And finally, you may have heard the saying before: leave the leaves. Leaves are habitat for many lepidopteran species. They will basically put their cocoon or chrysalis into leaves. So leaving the leaves is a great thing. You can use it as a mulch around your shrubs or throughout the landscape. But if you can leave the leaves and you have that ability, I highly encourage you to do so.
Resource Four: Water and Mineral Resources
Jeremy Rhoden: All right, and then finally, the last of the four things is water and mineral resources. So you want to be able to leave natural soil exposed to moisture, because butterflies do a practice called puddling, where they’ll actually feed from and get moisture from those wet spots. And they are not only pulling up water, but they’re also pulling up nutrients from the soil that they depend on. You can periodically add organic compost or well-composted cow manure to areas like this, and that will also help provide them with some extra nutrients. This also provides amino acids and organic compounds to butterflies, which they heavily rely on in order to have the energy they need to continue flying looking for food.
Some other things you can do in the garden, just as a DIY do-it-yourself: you can always get like these saucers, these plant pot saucers, and you can put some gravel in them. Just make sure you clean it off really well, especially if you’re buying like gravel from a craft store — so just rinse it off, get it clean. And the idea with this is that you’re not covering the gravel completely with water, but you’re actually making it to where they have something to stand on, where they can just roost there and use their proboscis, their mouthparts, to drink water from there. Fruit plates are another idea. I see this a lot, and oftentimes in like butterfly exhibits or rainforests — we have one up at UF in Gainesville at the University of Florida, and they have these little fruit plates all over the place, and they are a great way of providing extra minerals temporarily to butterflies.
As long-term applications, obviously you don’t want to just leave things out there to ferment too long, or you don’t want to just leave a pollinator bath like this out without cleaning it on a regular basis. Maintenance is key with that. You’ve got to keep it clean, so you’re not promoting disease within your butterflies. If you’re like me, I don’t always think about that or have the time to do that. So what I instead try to do is create natural water areas and natural fruiting areas where they can get their nutrients. So planting native fruit trees, such as native figs or persimmons, blackberries, things like that, and allowing those things to fruit and fall off the plants, where they will ripen on the ground. They will find those and they will feed from them. So it’s something you can do. I just saw the comment — yes, I totally understand the whole problem with squirrels. It is the story of my life. They ruin everything in my yard. But again, it’s because I’m promoting the natural ecosystem and that whole circle of life. And because of that, they just keep coming. Though I think they’re overabundant, so I’ve got to figure something out with that.
Threats and Conservation Challenges
Jeremy Rhoden: All right, so just some other things to think about — threats and conservation challenges with butterflies. You know, we’re all here today because we enjoy pollinators, but particularly butterflies, and we’re trying to attract them and trying to protect them. So we are very familiar with many of these things. So we know there’s a lot of habitat loss and fragmentation going on, pests and disease, pesticide exposure — whether that’s from us, our neighbors, or mosquito spraying around the neighborhood. There’s certain things that are out of our control, but we still have a voice and we can still advocate about certain things. We know there’s climate change that’s happening, again out of our control, but we can do something. And then, of course, the constant battle with invasive species.
And, you know, I had a client talk to me recently about a mimosa tree. And for those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a pink silk flower — very beautiful tree. Originates from China. And it’s just a great tree in the sense that it’s beautiful. Pollinators love it. Hummingbirds love it. You’ll see tons and tons of pollinators on it the entire time it is in bloom, and you’ll get tons of hummingbirds from it. And so people immediately think, well, you know, if pollinators are in danger, or if they’re at risk for extinction because there’s just not enough food for them, and we have this tree that’s in bloom, and they’re all coming to this tree — why should we remove this tree? Why should we get rid of this tree? Well, the truth is, they do love that tree, and you will see pollinators all over it, and you will see hummingbirds all over it, and you will see this great tree in bloom that is highly attractive to these pollinators.
But what happens is, it produces so much nectar and has so much favoritism by these pollinators — especially in their adult stage, where they are generalists — that they continuously go to this tree for pollination services instead of going to native plantings for pollination services. And we’re already in such a decline in native plant material for specialist insects. What happens is, those native plants are not pollinated. Oftentimes they’re in the understory of where those big trees are growing. And so what happens is, we see that plant population decline more and more and more, where that non-native tree or non-native plant increases. So whether the plant is considered invasive or simply non-native, that’s why we aim for that 75% all-native — because we want native to become the dominant species. Not because we can’t enjoy a non-native beautiful plant, but because we want to be able to make sure that what we have the majority of is what our specialists need. And so just something to think about when it does come to invasive species and non-native species. Nobody is telling you you can’t have a crepe myrtle tree, or you can’t have those beautiful non-native plants. Just, one, you want to make sure it’s not invasive or have danger of becoming invasive. And you also need to make sure that it needs to be able to have its place without taking the place of all of those native plants that our specialists depend on.
So, some other things just to bring up. A recent study by Xerces Society showed that 22% of the U.S. butterfly species disappeared between 2000 and 2020 — so within 20 years. And that average decline was 1.3% annually. So that’s pretty crazy when you think about that — you know, almost a quarter of our butterfly population in the U.S. has disappeared just in those 20 years. And so there’s a lot that we should be and can be doing to help promote those populations. But we also see research studies like these three here — and these are just three of many — that actually indicate microhabitats, or micro-fragments of habitat, significantly benefit pollinator sustainability and diversity. And in fact, many of these studies, or at least several that I have read, actually show that not only has it sustained pollinator populations having those microhabitats — so whether that’s, you know, little individual backyards here and there creating a pollinator corridor — but it also indicates that there has been higher diversity of pollinator species in these microhabitats.
So we can’t think, like, you know, “all I have is a third-floor balcony of my apartment building to help promote pollinators, there’s nothing I can do.” We can’t think with that logic. We have to actually think every square inch, every square foot matters to these pollinators. And I always talk about it with the bees, and Sonia may know this — there may be a butterfly species out there, but there are some species of pollinators that do not travel more than about 25 to 50 square feet in their entire life. So if all you have is that balcony, and you plant five potted plants there, your balcony could be their entire world of food. And so thinking about that logic, I really hope that it encourages you to think that no matter how small of a space you have, or whatever limitations you have in your neighborhood, you still have the ability to do something for pollinators. So just keep that in mind.
While we have limited control of the threats — we know there’s certain things we can’t control, and there’s some things we cannot — there’s still great opportunity for conservation and sustainability, starting with education, advocacy, and behavior changes. So we do a big Pollinator Ambassador Academy here in Florida, and the whole purpose of that is to raise individuals, or to create individuals, who have already gotten past understanding that pollinators are vital and important, and they’re now ready to speak up for pollinators with their local communities, local leaders, local governments. And so that is something that we are really trying to promote individuals to do — not just planting a sustainable pollinator habitat, but speaking up for pollinators as well.
Raising and Releasing Captive Butterflies
Jeremy Rhoden: A couple other things I wanted to bring up with threats and conservation challenges. Current research does advise against raising and releasing captive butterflies, as it unintentionally harms wild populations. I’m just going to tell you up front, this is a picture of monarchs that I raise with my kids at home. And this was a few years ago. We have a really large garden festival here with my master gardeners every year, called the Spring Festival. And for years we had a butterfly walk-through tent, and it was a major highlight of our festival. And when I mentioned that the current research is showing that this is not good for pollinators’ sustainability, and that we really shouldn’t be releasing them — because that was part of the practice. We wouldn’t just have them there for the show, but we were using native painted ladies that were raised in a lab, and then we were releasing them. And we learned that that’s not really good. They have a much higher susceptible rate of developing diseases, and then passing those diseases on to the native wild species that were out there.
And so this was a hard pill for us to swallow. It was a hard change for us. But it created an educational moment with our entire community — why we don’t have the butterfly tent anymore, and what we are doing about that, and how we are promoting butterfly conservation. And so I would just really encourage you — like, I know a lot of folks do this to protect those butterflies from getting eaten by those predatory wasps or lizards, things like that — but I would just really encourage you to start thinking about that and do your own research. Don’t let me make that decision for you. Do your own research on it, and make your decision based on education and what you find in that. And, you know, for us, we decided we weren’t going to do this anymore. And we’re doing our best to continue promoting their conservation and increasing their numbers, but we’re trying to find different ways of doing so.
Closing Tips and the Pollinator Census
Jeremy Rhoden: So going back to creating a butterfly landscape, just some tips at the end here. Plant native species, include host plants, provide continuous blooms year-round. Think about every season having something in bloom, with every color, every flower shape, that will promote it not only for butterflies but your other pollinators as well. Reduce or eliminate insecticide use — if you can get rid of it altogether, that’s great. I understand that’s not always possible for everyone, depending on what you’re doing or where you’re at, but trying to reduce it would be at least the best you can do. Leave some messy or natural habitat. If you’re not in a strict HOA or homeowners association that has a problem with that, leave some areas that are natural and just let it do its thing, and see what wild things pop up that might be native. Do your research, make sure they’re not anything invasive that’s popping up, but just kind of maintain that and look for those things. And then again, create in layers, providing different scales — so your trees, your large shrubs, medium shrubs, bedding plants, and ground covers.
So just some last tips here. Get to know your butterflies and their host plants. When you see a caterpillar, look at those guides and see what you have. There’s a lot of features on phones like Seek that Sonia mentioned earlier. That is a great app that you can use to help identify those things. iNaturalist, even Google Lens and Apple, have done really well at getting better with their services built into their phone, identifying those insects and caterpillars. Remember that host plants have evolved with butterflies to be resilient to foliar feeding. So you’re going to see foliar loss, and that’s expected. They will bounce back most of the time. So just keep that in mind. Know when to expect them throughout the year. Promote your balanced ecosystem, and prepare yourself — again, I can’t stress this enough — prepare yourself for the circle of life.
The more butterflies you have, the more predators you’re going to have. Birds, lizards, the whole nine yards. This is not a bad thing. This means that you are increasing biodiversity. And so, for the first time this year — I’ve lived in my house for 10 years, and I am always jealous of my coworker who lives about 45 minutes away from me, because she has our native green tree frogs that I have never had in our yard for 10 years, and I continuously get the Cuban tree frogs. And I’ve been trying to get rid of those and promote my balanced ecosystem. And this is the first year — I just saw, for the past two weeks, I’ve seen on two different instances now the native green tree frogs in my yard, and it has been like the highlight of everything. Because I’m not even — I’m more or less promoting the pollinators, but what I’m finding is that balanced ecosystem is what I’m hoping and believing to be coming back to where I’m at, and I’m seeing those. So it’s been really cool for me. So I hope you get to experience that similar, but you’ve got to be okay with the entire ecosystem doing its thing in your landscape. So just something to think about.
And finally, the last thing — you know, obviously you all are here, which is great. You’re obviously involved in pollinators, you want to be involved in pollinators. I hope you’re all planning on participating in the Great Southeast Pollinator Census this August. It’s going to be great. I know many of you have — I can already see some of the names in the chat, I recognize you, whether you’re a master gardener or a pollinator ambassador or part of the Southeast in some way. I do hope that you’re all planning on that. The counting matters for this because we are monitoring population trends with pollinators. And not only that, but I can’t tell you the amount of data that we have coming in that shows people are not only making behavior changes, but they’re also thinking twice about what they’re doing in their landscape, and is it promoting pollinator conservation, or should they make a different practice altogether?
And so what you are doing — and when you go out and you tell others about the pollinator census and about pollinators, and spread the word about their conservation, you are making major differences along the way. I mean, starting in Georgia with Becky, starting this back in 2019 with about 5,000 people participating, to last year being closer to 25 to 30,000 people, just in a matter of a few years. The demand is here. The interest is here in pollinator conservation. It’s just getting people looped in and letting them know that there is an active movement towards this. So I appreciate y’all being here. Continue to think about those things of how you can promote the census and promote pollinator conservation. Practice your observation skills between now and August and every day. I mean, keep going out and exploring your garden, see what’s out there. Learn to distinguish your butterflies from moths — which Sonia gave us some great tips on that, with learning about how to tell the difference between those groups. Know your major butterfly groups, and then record your observations accurately using an ID app for help. And again, we went over some of those today as well.
And so with that, just to kind of wrap up before we get into the questions: we do have great butterfly diversity in the Southeast United States. So there’s a lot to see out there, a lot to discover. Butterflies have fascinating behaviors and complex lifestyles. We know that host and nectar plants are just as important. And even though butterflies aren’t always considered the best pollinator, they do still provide a lot of pollination services, and they are very important for biodiversity and the whole ecosystem as a whole. And everyone can help conserve butterflies and pollinators through habitat creation, restoration, and of course citizen science, like the Southeast Pollinator Census. And so with that, I will stop talking and pass it over to Becky.
Questions and Answers
Becky Griffin: Boy, Jeremy, that was great. You guys did a wonderful job. I took copious notes myself, so that is fantastic.
Becoming a Pollinator Ambassador or Steward
Becky Griffin: Jeremy, the first thing that I want to mention to you is that we’ve had a request for you to either give a website or some information on how those in Florida can become a pollinator ambassador.
Jeremy Rhoden: Yeah, so that’s a great question. So unfortunately, we don’t have a landing page yet. It’s in the works, and we’re hoping to get there. But I would say the best thing to do is to email me directly. Right now, I am the sole leader of that, but we’re trying to get it across the state of Florida. We have several districts that are interested in leading one. And we’re also looking at doing a Canvas portion of that online. But if you email me, I do have an active ongoing interest list of individuals who are interested in that course. And as we get closer to that time, I will email all of you first to let you know when registration opens, so you have first opportunity to sign up for the course.
Becky Griffin: Excellent. And if you’re in Georgia and you’re interested in something like that, we have a similar program called the Pollinator Stewards. And the Pollinator Stewards are run out of each individual extension office. So if you’re interested in becoming a Pollinator Steward in Georgia, contact your local extension agent and mention that to them, and they have access to that program as well. So lots of cool things going on. Okay, let’s get into some of these questions.
Are Butterfly Numbers Declining?
Becky Griffin: We have some good ones here. One of the questions we’ve gotten a couple times is, where are the butterflies? People are not seeing as many as they have in the past. Do we have an answer for that, or is it just one of those things?
Sonia Altizer: I can jump in. Yes. And thank you again, everybody, for your patience.
Becky Griffin: We’ve all been there. Absolutely.
Sonia Altizer: Yeah. I just — you know how it is when you get something. I could blame an insect for getting into my throat, but I don’t think that’s what happened. Um. But so, one answer to that question is that there is growing evidence that butterflies and other insect populations are declining. But it’s not even evenly distributed across geographic areas or taxonomic groups. But because, as we noted, the butterflies are so extensively monitored and have been the focus of a lot of volunteer-based monitoring programs over the past several decades — you know, when looking at data across these programs, it does appear that there are declines in overall butterfly abundance during the past 20 to 30 years, especially in Europe and North America. And so, just to cite a study that was published last year by a big collaborative group of butterfly experts, it showed that there were declines of more than 10% over the past 20 years. And in fact, that for every five — what was the figure — for every five butterflies that we saw 20 years ago, only four remain today in North America.
And they found that that was not evenly distributed across all butterflies. So there were some butterfly species that showed sharp declines. There were a smaller number of butterfly species that have actually increased over the past 20 years. But there were over 10 times as many butterfly species that were declining as there were butterfly species that were increasing. So I think the general observation that people are noting — that, gosh, I don’t see as many butterflies now as maybe I did 20 or 30 years ago — I think that’s real, and that’s generally true. And I think Jeremy talked nicely about some of the reasons why we think that’s happening. Although we should just note that that’s not the case for every butterfly species, and that’s not the case in every part of the world.
Monarch Migration and the South Florida Population
Becky Griffin: Jeremy, do you mind unsharing your screen? Thank you. Okay, so another question. Can you all address monarch migration? It seems it sends some to Mexico and some to South Florida. Do we know why that is? Since you’re in Florida, Jeremy, do you want to start?
Jeremy Rhoden: Yeah, I will try to answer some of that. And Sonia, please jump in, because this is going to be right up your wheelhouse. But so, we do have a native population of monarchs that do not migrate, that live in South Florida. And so we have some — I was just talking with Sonia about this yesterday. Xerces Society just released an article, I think it was this past month, May, talking about that Florida monarchs may play a key role in migration, not just down to Mexico but also migrating up north. And so I didn’t get a chance to read the article like I told Sonia I would; I just skimmed it briefly. But yes, so we do have some here that do not migrate whatsoever. We have some that have been found, thanks to some of these radio tracking reports, chips that they are able to put on their abdomen, that have been going from Florida — especially the younger ones — from South Florida all the way up to like Valdosta, and traveling over 100 miles to get up there. And so that’s been pretty interesting. But they have developed — I did read a little bit in this article — that they’ve developed new chips that they are able to put on these butterflies for tracking, and that they’re finding that a lot of the older monarchs are staying in one place and not really doing any type of migration. Whereas the younger monarchs that have just likely — what’s the word I’m looking for — gone into their adult stage that spring, are actually making that migration, and they’re going up as north as Valdosta and then making their way back down.
Sonia Altizer: So I think that it’s really cool that — I think the southeastern US has been overlooked in terms of its importance for monarch conservation and monarch migration. And monarch migration is changing, and a lot of that change has to do with things happening in the southeastern US. And it’s complicated, because especially in the southern Atlantic coast and the Gulf Coast, we have monarchs that breed year-round and don’t migrate. We have monarchs that do what’s called coastal overwintering, where they spend the winter in a non-breeding state in the southern United States. And then we have migrants passing through these areas in the spring and fall. And so I think that we know that the future’s going to be different than what we’re seeing today. It’s already different than what we saw yesterday. And so I think predicting what the new normal is going to be is really important. I think the Southeast is going to play an important role in that, and we should really try to understand that monarchs have been in southern Florida for a long time — for as long as people have been studying them — in a resident state; that some of those monarchs are genetically distinct from the monarchs that migrate; that there are more and more monarchs that are spending the winter in the southern United States. And that could play an important role in the future of monarch conservation.
And I love that Jeremy also mentioned those new Bluetooth — those solar-powered Bluetooth tags — that actually can communicate with a cell phone app that people can download and detect a monarch if it’s within like 100 or 200 meters of them with a tag on. And these tags are generating hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hits that allow researchers to track monarchs for many months along their entire migratory routes, or in some cases when they’re not migrating. And that’s going to, I think, give us some really important answers to that question.
Becky Griffin: I love that app. I have it on my phone, and I get great joy at tracking monarchs on my phone. So I will put a link to that app in the show notes when we post the recordings. We also have a comment I wanted to mention: Alabama also has a Pollinator Partners program. So if you are in Alabama and interested, contact your local Extension office as well. Thank you, Edward, for that one. Jeremy, I cannot look it up right now, so do you mind putting your email in the chat? Several people are asking for it.
Raising Caterpillars: Education vs. Boosting Populations
Becky Griffin: All right, Sonia, this one, I think you would be a good one to talk to about this. We talked about — Jeremy did a good job talking about — should we be raising monarchs at home and then releasing them thinking that we’re doing good when we’re really not. What about — Cheryl Webster had a good point — can she capture caterpillars from her own garden, grow them in a butterfly happy home to release back into her yard? Her grandson loves watching this.
Sonia Altizer: That’s a great question. And my approach to this is to say that I think it’s fine to raise monarchs and raise caterpillars of other butterfly species too, for educational purposes, you know, maybe for personal enrichment — but do it in moderation. You know, maybe raise like 4, 5, maybe 10 caterpillars. What worries me is when I see reports of people that are raising like 100, 200, 500 caterpillars for the purpose of releasing them back into the wild, thinking that they are boosting their populations or that they’re going to somehow help the migration. There actually are people that will do this, that will also, like up in the northern U.S. — well, in the fall, if they’re worried that the monarchs aren’t going to migrate successfully south, they’ll put monarchs in a FedEx box and mail them to Texas for people to leave there, thinking, again, that they’re helping the migration. And I always tell people, don’t do it if you think that you’re going to be doing it because you want to boost their population numbers or help their migration. That is not helping them survive and migrate in the wild. But do it if you want to teach somebody about the beauty of nature, like the amazing life cycles and metamorphosis. In an educational setting, I think that’s where I would encourage it, and where it can be really useful. And I don’t know, Jeremy, I guess you might agree with that, given what you said in your presentation.
Jeremy Rhoden: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we have teachers in our county that do that as well, and even some of our 4-H groups. You know, I think I would say that’s a perfect answer. Honestly, I don’t know that there’s necessarily a full right or full wrong answer. But I would agree with that in terms of what she’s saying. When you’re releasing that many butterflies at one time in the wild too, I mean, you don’t know what they’re carrying or what they can get and then pass along to other wild species, because they don’t have a built immune system like those others do. So just kind of thinking along those lines. And like she mentioned about shipping them to other places — if they have something, and now you’re shipping them to another state, you’re spreading the disease that way as well. But yeah, I would definitely support the education of it. And you mentioned it earlier too, in your presentation — like, in many cases, I jokingly said to Sonia yesterday, I heard somebody say one time that monarch butterflies are the gateway drug into butterfly conservation or pollinator gardening. And in many cases, it kind of is. It is where people get their start in wanting to promote and attract butterflies to their landscape. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it’s a really good thing. And so if that happens in the classroom for educational purposes, then absolutely. I think I would fully support that.
Becky Griffin: I think we’re all in agreement there, and that’s a very good answer. That does answer the issue.
Bird Feeders During Fall Migration
Becky Griffin: Carla wants to know if she should take down her bird feeders in the garden in September when she expects the monarchs.
Sonia Altizer: That’s a really great question. I would generally say no. During the fall migration, monarchs are generally pretty heavily chemically defended with these cardenolides that tend to deter bird predation on them. And I think that during that time of year, they’re probably much more heavily predated by, you know, like large spiders, praying mantises, than they would be by birds. By the time that monarchs are several months old, a lot of those cardenolides have decayed to the point that monarchs become quite tasty to bird predators. But that’s not the case during the fall migration. So I would say no, there’s no reason to take down bird feeders during the fall migration.
Chrysalis Formation and Placement
Becky Griffin: Okay, good answer there. Jacqueline is interested in knowing a little bit more about how far a caterpillar will move from a host plant before forming a chrysalis. And do we need to have anything in our gardens to help with chrysalis formation, or hiding the chrysalis?
Sonia Altizer: I’ll jump in, and then Jeremy can add anything. So I have seen monarchs go surprisingly far away to form a chrysalis, and I’ve seen them form chrysalises in really bizarre places too, like on the bottom of people’s mailboxes, on the siding of their garage. But generally they try to hide their chrysalis in vegetation. So they want to go away and they want to go up, in my experience. And so if you have vegetation, like some woody vegetation, tree shrubs around your host plants, that can be really helpful. I have seen them on the sides of brick buildings, where the bricks are hanging over a little bit and they’ll form a chrysalis there. And you always feel like, when you see a chrysalis, it’s like a treat — that nature has rewarded you with seeing this beautiful thing that not many people get to see. When you think about it, a chrysalis — like, they’re stuck in there, right? They can’t move, they can’t get away from a predator. So the best thing they can do is hide. It’s really just a cool life cycle.
Does Mosquito Spraying Contribute to Butterfly Decline?
Becky Griffin: All right. We’re going to take one more question, and then the rest of them will be answered, and the questions and their answers will be on the same page as the recording. Last question is, does spraying for mosquitoes contribute to butterfly decline? I thought you liked that one for the last one.
Jeremy Rhoden: Yeah, we talked about this yesterday too. Yeah, you know, this is a question that does come up sometimes in our pollinator programming. It affects all of them, and unfortunately, you know — it’s no secret that mosquitoes kill more people every year than any other animal. And so they spread a lot of disease. They are obviously a big concern. And, you know, when it comes to public officials making decisions that protect human lives versus pollinators — I know it’s sad, but you know, it’s also understandable. But you know, they’ve got to do whatever reduces risk in their communities. And so oftentimes that is the case, where they are spraying. Some things you can do — I did learn, like in our particular county in Florida, which is Marion County, I can’t say this is true of all counties, that you can contact your county and request that you be a no-spray zone. It does not mean it’s going to happen, but it is something you can put a request in. I also learned that you can go to the Department of Agriculture, or excuse me, Plant and Consumer Services, in our state — and I’m sure your states have this as well — where you can also go and request that you be put on a registry for that, so whenever commercial landscapers or commercial sprayers are spraying in your area, you are listed on a map indicating that you are an area that cannot have exposure. If I had to guess, I would imagine these registries are made for people who have health concerns with being on there. But you know, if you’re like a registered monarch way station, or a registered wildlife habitat, that might justify enough for you to be put on something like that. And of course, educating your local leaders — you know, if you’re trying to promote biodiversity with animals and things like that, there’s other alternatives that you can try before doing broadcast spraying like that, like using those mosquito dunks, and using those if you have local retention ponds, things like that. There’s things you can do to help reduce the amount of mosquito larvae that are there. So — I don’t know, Sonia, do you have anything to add to that?
Sonia Altizer: I think that’s a really great question. It’s one that’s very hard to address. We’ve definitely suspected at times that mosquito spraying, especially aerial spraying for mosquitoes, has been responsible for mortality of caterpillars and butterflies. But it’s difficult to get data on that. And I also think that maybe there’s evidence that there are other ways of controlling mosquitoes outside of spraying that are much more effective and less environmentally harmful, including just getting rid of, you know, like dumping out standing water — small pots of standing water in the yard — and just using mosquito repellents. And so I guess I would generally encourage people to think about those alternative methods, aside from — especially move away from aerial spraying, and fogging. And we also have like the Bt, the little floating Bt discs that we can put in ponds to get rid of mosquitoes. So, you know, on the one hand, I do agree, like there are definite health risks from mosquitoes. But, you know, I think if there are things that we can do to discourage spraying and fogging, especially during times of year that are really important for butterflies and pollinators, that’s useful.
Becky Griffin: Sometimes there’s not a clear black-and-white answer for a lot of issues we have to deal with, that’s for sure. Well, thank you so much to Sonia and Jeremy today. This was an amazing session. Please tune in next week for small bees. I’m looking forward to that. And you remember, for the definition of a small bee for purposes of the census, is anything smaller than a honey bee.
Transcript processed for UGA Center for Urban Agriculture / GTBOP Archives — Great Southeast Pollinator Course
Source: Corrected SRT (Stage 1) — GTBOP_Transcript_2026-06-30_Butterflies.srt (340 blocks)