butterfly gardening

Copyright © 2024 by Pamela Grundy All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Library of Congress Control Number: NRC112731 ISBN number: 979-8-218-40840-4 Photographs by Pamela Grundy Design by Little Shiva – littleshiva.com

To Lois Parker Grundy 1934-2024 chrysalis to resplendent glory

Table of Contents 1 Welcome 3 If You Plant It 5 A Place for Butterflies Host Plants

Nectar Plants Trees 13 Swallowtails

Eastern Black Swallowtails

Tiger Swallowtails

Spicebush Swallowtails

Pipevine Swallowtails 23 Monarchs

Milkweed Community

33 Moths

Luna Moths

Regal Moths 39 Bees, Beetles and Other Creatures 41 Raising Caterpillars

Watching Caterpillars

Caterpillar to Chrysalis

Chrysalis to Butterfly

Chrysalis and Cocoon 51 Caterpillars in Schools

Monarch Magic

Work Hard, Play Hard 57 Winter

27 Gulf Fritillaries

59 Vocabulary

29 Sulphurs

60 Resources

31 Skippers

62 Illustrations

Welcome!

I hope this book helps you create a beautiful home for butterflies – and that you enjoy butterfly gardening as much as I do.

Many thanks to the staff, students and parents at Shamrock Gardens Elementary School, who warmly supported a decade of butterfly gardening at the school. Most of the pictures in this book were taken at Shamrock. You can learn more about area butterflies and school butterfly gardening at the related website, ncswallowtail.org.

I’m delighted to be working with gardener Will Stephens, who has helped me shape and expand my home butterfly garden and who provided many of the planting suggestions here.

Finally, thanks to Beth Henry, who has enthusiastically shared plants, knowledge and wisdom through the years. Her love for children and nature is a never-ending inspiration.

Happy butterflying!

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If You Plant It The August light is fading as I venture to the garden for a few sprigs of parsley. Too late.

An Eastern Black Swallowtail has gotten there before me, and yellow eggs spangle the feathery green. I’ll have to get my parsley somewhere else.

A few days later the eggs darken. Then the caterpillars hatch – flecks of black with smooth round heads. They start to eat. When they grow tight inside their skins, they burst the backs, crawl out, and start to eat again.

Shed, chew, repeat.

They emerge from the third molt clad in stripes of yellow, black and lime green. They grow larger. If disturbed, they stick out bright orange horns.

When they have eaten their fill, each wanders off in search of a quiet spot to shed a final skin and harden into a chrysalis. In a few days, new butterflies emerge.

This miracle can unfold in your yard as well.

If you plant parsley, they will come.

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A Place for Butterflies Growing a butterfly garden is a multifaceted delight. It also serves the planet. Butterflies pollinate a wide range of plants. Caterpillars transform leaves into food for birds, frogs, lizards, mice and countless other creatures.

With residential and industrial development rapidly consuming open land, home habitat gardening has taken on new urgency.

A butterfly garden also makes it possible to raise caterpillars at home or in a classroom.

It’s a simple task, and a great joy.

You can create a butterfly garden with just a few flowering nectar plants to attract butterflies and one or two host plants for their caterpillars (also known as “cats”). An established, well-mulched butterfly garden takes very little work. Start small and then expand. Experience and enjoy.

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Host Plants While butterflies can sip nectar from almost any flower, caterpillars must be more discriminating. Most butterfly caterpillars can digest only one or two kinds of leaves.

Monarch caterpillars, which only eat milkweed, are the best-known example.

A female butterfly must find the right plant to lay her eggs. If you see a butterfly flitting from one leaf to another, it’s probably a female looking for a host plant. Many butterflies have scent glands in their feet.

They judge a leaf’s suitability by giving it a gentle tap.

The more host plants you grow, the more caterpillars you’ll discover. I’m always looking to add new host plants and raise new cats.

Nearly 200 species of butterflies call North Carolina home, ranging from tiny Eastern Tailed Blues through mid-sized Buckeyes and Red Spotted Purples to majestic Swallowtails.

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Nectar Plants Most butterflies sip nectar from flowers. To feed the greatest number, you should have flowers blooming from early spring through late fall. Prepare your garden in full or partial sun – butterflies love sun! Include flowers of different colors, shapes, heights, and bloom seasons. A variety of plant species will attract a variety of butterfly species.

Native perennial wildflowers should form the backbone of your garden. Plant them in groups, to create masses of bloom. Native perennials also support our native bees.

Spring-blooming perennials include creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera), bluestar (Amsonia ciliata), and columbine (Aquilegia canadensis).

Summer-blooming perennials include oxeye sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides), mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), milkweeds (Asclepias genus), and bee balms (Monarda genus).

Goldenrods (Solidago genus) and asters (Aster genus) bloom in late summer and fall.

They also serve as host plants for caterpillars.

Annuals, including zinnias, cosmos and marigolds, also provide important nectar sources for butterflies. Many bloom from early summer to late fall.

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Trees Taking care of trees also helps butterflies.

Trees support hundreds of species of butterfly and moth caterpillars. Oaks, cherries, sweetgums, hickories, pecans, paw paws and many others feed caterpillars all summer long.

Occasionally a group of caterpillars gets out of hand. A few years ago, a plague of cankerworms defoliated trees across Charlotte. But most of the time, birds and other predators keep things in balance. A single pair of chickadee parents captures hundreds of caterpillars every day to feed their babies.

While tree-dwelling caterpillars pass most of their time high up and out of sight, many eventually descend to earth. Some, like Hickory Horned Devils, crawl down to the ground and bury themselves before pupating. Others, such as Luna Moths, wrap their cocoons in the surrounding foliage, and come down amid the dying leaves in autumn.

By mulching well around your trees and planting a few native plants you can create a beautiful environment that supports this cycle of life.

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Swallowtails Swallowtails – named for the trailing tails on their hind wings – are North Carolina’s largest butterflies.

Like most butterfly caterpillars, Swallowtails go through five stages, called “instars.” At the end of each instar, the caterpillar sheds its skin – also known as its exoskeleton. Many caterpillars look the same from instar to instar. Swallowtails undergo more dramatic transformations.

The first three instars usually involve a “bird poop” stage – dark bodies marked by white splotches around the middle. It’s an effective disguise. Who would want to eat bird poop?

Later instars are larger and brighter.

When a Swallowtail is ready to transform into a butterfly, it leaves its host plant and sets off to find a suitable location to make a chrysalis, a process called pupation. Any caterpillar you run across that isn’t on a host plant is probably looking for a good pupation spot.

When the cat finds the right place, it makes a silk pad that anchors its back end to a stable surface, then spins a silk thread known as a girdle and leans back into it. It sheds one last time, then hardens into a horned chrysalis that looks like a tiny cat or owl.

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Eastern Black Swallowtails Papilio polyxenes asterius Host plants: Parsley, Fennel, Dill, Carrots, Golden Alexander As their name suggests, Eastern Black Swallowtails are mainly black, with yellow and blue markings around the edges of their wings. Females have more blue than males.

They feed on plants in the carrot family.

Many of these host plants, like garden parsley, aren’t native to the Americas. But the caterpillars have adapted – so well that they’re often known as “parsley caterpillars.”

After three instars of “bird poop” garb, the cats take on stripes and spots in varying combinations of black, yellow and green.

They might seem gaudy, but they blend in well with a host plant’s lights and shadows.

They have other defenses as well. Give one a gentle poke and it will stick out a pair of orange horns formally known as an osmeterium, and emit a bad smell.

Eastern Black Swallowtails’ widely available host plants, easy-to-spot eggs and dramatic coloration make them excellent caterpillars for starting a butterfly garden or caterpillarraising endeavor.

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Tiger Swallowtails Papilio glaucus Host plants: Tulip Poplar, Black Cherry Back in 1585, when English botanist and artist John White was exploring the coastal land that would later become Eastern North Carolina, he sketched an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. It was the first North American butterfly drawn by a European. His choice isn’t surprising. The large yellow butterflies with their bold black tiger stripes make a powerful impression.

Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars often pass their lives high in the tops of Tulip Poplar trees. But if you keep a sapling in your garden and trim it regularly, a female may visit and lay eggs.

Like most Swallowtails, Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars start out in bird poop mode. In later stages they emerge bright green with two false yellow eyespots. The eyespots make them look like snakes, which can fool predators. Like most Swallowtails, they also put out orange osmeterium when disturbed.

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Spicebush Swallowtails Papilio troilus Host plants: Spicebush , Sassafras Spicebush caterpillars spend most of their days hiding in folded spicebush or sassafras leaves. They usually feed at night, then pick a leaf and spin a mat of silk that pulls it closed around them. It’s great fun to search spicebushes for folded leaves, then gently open them to see what lies inside.

In its later instars, a Spicebush cat looks like it emerged from an animator’s dream. The caterpillar’s real head is small and white. But its green skin sports a huge pair of yellowand-black eyespots. Blue dots run down its flanks, above its coral-colored feet. Just before it makes its chrysalis, it often turns bright yellow or pale orange.

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Pipevine Swallowtails Battus philenor Host plant: Pipevine Unlike their solitary cousins, Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars hang around in groups. Females lay clusters of eggs, and cats stay together as they grow. They start out red, and then turn orange and black.

Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies shimmer black and metallic blue. Their chrysalises have a lovely greenish sheen.

Their host plant, named Dutchman’s Pipevine because its flowers resemble a traditional Dutch pipe, can be difficult to find and cultivate. But it’s well worth the effort.

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Monarchs Danaus plexippus Host plant: Milkweed The Monarch butterflies that visit North Carolina milkweed patches are just passing through. They stop here in late spring, on their way to Canada, and in early fall, as they head to Mexico.

The Monarchs that arrive here in the fall are a transition generation. Like most butterflies, they live for only a few weeks, just long enough to mate and lay eggs.

The butterflies that emerge from those eggs will live far longer. They’ll head to the mountains of central Mexico, where they’ll hibernate by the millions in towering oyamel firs. When spring returns, they’ll come back north. Monarchs of the migrating generation can live as long as nine months and fly as far as 3,000 miles.

Monarchs have been having a tough time lately. As farmland has filled with houses, and as farms have employed more herbicides, the milkweed that used to grow wild in fields across North America has become harder and harder to find. Winter habitats in Mexico and California are also under pressure.

These struggles embody many aspects of a growing, changing world.

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Milkweed Community Milkweed beds host a lively community of creatures.

Nectivores such as moths, honeybees and hummingbirds sip nectar from the clusters of fragrant flowers. Herbivores such as aphids and milkweed bugs suck juices from stems and leaves. Predators such as ladybugs and assassin bugs stalk insect prey. Parasites such as tiny braconid wasps lay eggs on other insects’ bodies, and their offspring consume their hosts from the inside out.

Scavengers such as spectacularly spotted leopard slugs feast on the remains of dead plants and other creatures.

Milkweed eaters are often garbed in black, red and orange, bright colors that signal poison. Milkweed is full of toxins, and so are milkweed-eaters. Predators learn quickly to look elsewhere for lunch. This protection sparks a phenomenon known as mimicry, in which harmless insects take on the colors of toxic ones. Non-toxic Gulf Fritillaries sport the same bright orange as Monarchs – and both people and predators have trouble telling them apart.

These colorful warnings make the milkweed patch a great place for exploring.

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Gulf Fritillaries Agraulis vanillae Host plant: Passion Vine While several different kinds of Fritillaries inhabit North Carolina, Gulf Fritillaries are especially appealing. They pair beautifully bright orange overwings with silvery underwings. They also employ an elaborate array of disguises to ward off predators.

Their bright orange overwings mean they’re frequently mistaken for bad-tasting Monarchs. Their silvery underwings also sport deceptively large eye shapes. A flash of those eyes can make the butterfly seem much larger and more menacing than it really is.

Gulf Fritillary cats deceive as well. They look thoroughly unappetizing – bright red and covered with branching black spines. Many caterpillars do have sharp and sometimes poisonous spines. You should never touch an unfamiliar spiny caterpillar. But Gulf Fritillaries’ spines are soft and harmless.

The last trick comes when they make their chrysalises, which look just like dead leaves.

One other fun fact – Gulf Fritillaries don’t hibernate. Instead, true to their name, they head south to Florida to spend the winter.

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Sulphurs Host plant: Senna Sulphur butterflies add bright spots of yellow to the summer bustle. The larger Cloudless Sulphurs flash neon wings.

Smaller ones, including Little Yellows, Sleepy Oranges and Clouded Sulphurs flit back and forth. They’re nervous butterflies – it’s hard to get close.

Sulphur caterpillars, slim pencils of green that lie along leaf veins, are almost impossible to see. It’s easier to spot the football-shaped white eggs that decorate the undersides of host plant leaves. Sulphur chrysalises do a fine job of imitating leaves.

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Skippers Host plants: Grasses, Legumes Skipper butterflies – named for the way they “skip” from plant to plant – make up the largest group of North Carolina butterflies.

Energetic clusters descend on summer nectar plants, enlivening any garden.

Skippers have larger bodies and smaller wings than most butterflies. They range from the good-sized Silver Spotted Skipper and Longtail Skipper to the tiny Least Skipper and Southern Skipperling. Butterfly enthusiasts pride themselves on being able to spot the subtle differences among the different species.

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Moths Moths and butterflies belong to the same taxonomic order – Lepidoptera. There aren’t many real differences among them. One quick way to tell them apart: butterflies generally have “club” antennae, with a thickened end that makes them look like golf clubs. Moths have either straight or feathery antennae.

Moths generally attract less attention than butterflies – they tend to fly at night, and most of them are gray or brown. But don’t be fooled. Look closely at even the smallest moth and you’ll find amazing patterns.

There are far more species of moths than butterflies, and they come in an astonishing variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Underwing moths conceal bright patches of color beneath brown upper wings. Hawkmoth clearwings resemble hummingbirds. Huge Promethea moths sport pink highlights and striking false eyespots.

Moth caterpillars can be especially dramatic – and dangerous. Never touch an unfamiliar caterpillar. Many look fuzzy, such as the red-banded woolly bears and the creamy sycamore tussocks. In the fall, keep an eye out for the saddlebacks, with their bright green “saddles” and protruding, spiny horns.

Their sting hurts for hours.

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Luna Moths Actias luna Host plant: Sweetgum, other trees Luna moths spend about six weeks in the caterpillar stage. They’re great fun to watch.

When they’re ready to pupate, they spin silk cocoons, pulling leaves around themselves as camouflage. Several weeks later, the adult moths cut holes in the cocoons, crawl out, and find spots to spread and dry their wings.

Lunas belong to the family Saturniid, a group of silk moths that includes Polyphemus, Cecropia and Regal moths. Oddly, adults Saturniids never eat. They don’t even have mouths. After they emerge from their cocoons, they live on stored fat for the few days it takes them to mate and lay eggs.

They mate by smell. Females pick a spot to perch and send out chemicals known as pheromones. Males use their large, feathery antennae to pick up the scent.

This mating strategy makes Lunas and other Saturniids easy to breed. If you put a female Luna outside at night, a male will almost certainly show up. You can learn more about this process at ncswallowtail.org.

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Regal Moths Citheronia regalis Host plants: Hickory, Sweetgum, Walnut, other trees The Regal moth has a spectacular caterpillar popularly called the Hickory Horned Devil.

They look fearsome but are completely harmless.

I was lucky enough to be able to raise one after a Regal laid some eggs on a friend’s doorstep. Each instar produced an extraordinary change, as the elaborately branched cat transitioned from coal black to red to aqua. It was a glorious experience.

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Bees, Beetles and Other Creatures A butterfly garden attracts creatures of all kinds. Black and yellow garden spiders sit vigilant in carefully spun webs. Grasshoppers lounge on leaves, surprising passers-by with sudden, arching leaps. Horned beetles, tiny crab spiders, majestic praying mantises – there’s always something new to see.

The world of insects is vast and varied, and things are not always what they seem.

Ladybugs, for example, emerge from their bright, yellow eggs looking like tiny black alligators. They molt and pupate just like butterflies. It takes them several stages to transform into the round, red-and-black spotted beetles we know so well.

Keep an eye out for native bees, both large and small. I adore big, furry bumblebees – 15 species live in North Carolina. They love to lounge in flowers. Morning garden forays are a great time to spot blossoms full of drowsy, pollen-covered bees.

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Raising Caterpillars Raising caterpillars can be great fun. You can buy a commercial enclosure or make your own – see the caterpillar section of ncswallowtail.org.

The best way to feed your cats is to keep them on host plant stems placed in water.

Be sure they can’t get to the water – they will crawl down stems and drown. I use smallnecked soda bottles and stuff paper towels around the stems.

Make sure the food doesn't run out.

Caterpillars grow fast, and they eat, eat, eat.

Near the end of their last instar, they can consume whole sprigs right before your eyes.

Also be careful not to gather leaves from anywhere near where there’s been mosquito spraying. The spray poisons everything it touches, drifts from yard to yard, and lingers on leaves to kill caterpillars when they hatch and start to eat. Just don’t do it!

You’ll also need to clean out frass – the formal term for caterpillar poop. That’s a simple task – caterpillars generally poop out tight, dry pellets of leaves that don’t smell. If you look carefully, you might spy some of the face masks that caterpillars drop when they shed their skins.

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Watching Caterpillars I love to watch caterpillars grow. Butterflies emerge from their chrysalises and fly off after a few hours. Caterpillars hang around.

Most caterpillars eat for about a week before making their chrysalises. Big silk moths such as Lunas and Regals take six weeks or more.

A caterpillar cage changes every day. Tiny cats crawl out of their eggs. Larger ones crawl out of their skins – growing and sometimes changing dramatically as they move from instar to instar.

Caterpillars eat with great determination, and you can sometimes hear them chewing.

Since each caterpillar focuses on its own host plant, you can raise several different kinds in the same enclosure. They won’t bother each other.

It can take a sharp eye to keep track of your cats, even in a small enclosure. Slim, green Sulfurs are especially challenging.

But even giant Lunas blend effectively into their surroundings and can prove easy to overlook.

When your caterpillars start looking for a sheltered spot to pupate, some may escape from your enclosure. You’re most likely to find a missing caterpillar’s chrysalis underneath a chair or table, or in another out-of-the-way place.

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Caterpillar to Chrysalis After eating . . . and eating . . . and eating . . . your caterpillars will be ready to make a chrysalis, or pupa – a process called pupation. They’ll start travelling around their enclosure, looking for the right spot.

Butterfly caterpillars rarely make chrysalises on their host plants, probably to avoid predators. Any time you see a caterpillar off its host plant – crossing a sidewalk, say, or crawling up a wall, it’s probably looking for a good spot to pupate.

I set out twigs or branches for pupating caterpillars, but they often attach themselves to parts of the enclosure instead.

To make a chrysalis, a butterfly caterpillar spins a wad of silk that attaches its tail end firmly to the chosen surface. Many caterpillars then hang upside down, forming a "J" shape. Some spin an extra string of silk, called a girdle, and lean back into it.

Whatever its position, the caterpillar will wriggle out of its skin one last time, and its outer layer will harden. Time to wait.

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Chrysalis to Butterfly Every time a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis, it's almost impossible to believe.

How could such a soft, squishy thing turn into a winged wonder? But each caterpillar's body contains clusters of cells that are ready to grow into the different parts of a butterfly.

Once the chrysalis forms, those cells go to work.

When the butterfly is ready, usually one or two weeks after it pupates, it breaks through the chrysalis walls, a process called eclosure.

At this point, it has a large, fluid-filled body and small, crumpled wings. Its first task is to find a place to hang while it pumps fluid from its body into its wings.

Butterflies need at least two hours for their wings to dry before they can fly. They fly best if released into warm, sunny conditions. Early afternoon is the best release time.

You can keep a newly eclosed butterfly in its enclosure for a day or two. They don't need food for a day or so after they emerge, and if for some reason you have to keep one in an enclosure longer, you can add a couple of fresh-cut flowers or a sponge soaked in sugar water for a snack.

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Chrysalis and Cocoon When butterflies pupate, their chrysalises take on remarkable shapes and colors.

The goal: disguise. A chrysalis makes a tasty, protein-packed snack. To survive, it has to be well hidden.

Some chrysalises mimic leaves. Others don unexpected colors. Monarchs and Variegated Fritillaries make chrysalises that shine bright green and sport golden spangles. The colors seem conspicuous, but they refract light in patterns that keep predators from spotting them.

Many moths spin silk cocoons before pupating. Some, like Luna Moths, wrap their cocoons in leaves, for additional concealment. Once the cocoon is finished, the moth pupates inside it. In this stage, the moth is called a pupa.

A chrysalis consists primarily of a thin, transparent shell. As the butterfly takes shape, it becomes visible through the shell.

When you can see the patterns and colors of wings, the butterfly should emerge soon.

Many moths and butterflies spend the winter in their cocoons or chrysalises.

I always leave some dead plant stalks and plenty of leaves in my garden, so my visitors will have a place to stay.

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Caterpillars in Schools I started working with butterflies at Shamrock Gardens Elementary. We had a beautiful Mid-Century Modern building that dated to 1954. The classrooms were grouped around a set of garden courtyards. Nature was never far away.

After decades of neglect, our PTA started the butterfly garden in 2009 as part of an effort to reintegrate and revitalize the school.

You can learn more about that history at ncswallowtail.org. It was a joy.

A butterfly garden makes a great addition to a school, as long as you have volunteers willing to take full responsibility for it. That responsibility involves maintaining the garden and visiting classrooms two or three times a week during caterpillar-raising season to monitor classroom caterpillars.

While most teachers love raising caterpillars, they’re generally overwhelmed with other responsibilities.

We started small at Shamrock, helping first graders raise Eastern Black Swallowtails.

Eventually, we had caterpillars in every classroom, with activities such as tagging Monarchs. Descriptions of these activities, along with downloadable materials, can also be found at ncswallowtail.org.

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Monarch Magic The tagging and release of Monarch butterflies has a fascinating history. Until a few decades ago, no one imagined that butterflies could make the 2,000-mile journey from Canada or the U.S. to Mexico.

For countless generations, residents of central Mexico knew that massive numbers of Monarchs would arrive in late October.

They had no idea where the butterflies came from. They incorporated their arrival into their Day of the Dead ceremonies.

By the late nineteenth century, Canadian and U.S. scientists knew that Monarchs disappeared in fall and reappeared in spring, but they didn’t know where they went. Then, starting in the 1950s, Canadian scientists Fred and Nora Urquhart devised a system to mark Monarchs with small numbered tags.

They recruited a corps of volunteer citizen scientists. In the fall of 1975, the first tagged Monarchs were found in Mexico.

The group Monarch Watch has been tagging Monarchs since 1992, studying the rhythm, scale and timing of each year’s migration.

You can order tagging kits from them.

The tagging process is a magical experience.

It’s the only time I let students touch butterflies, and their delight shines through.

You can learn more at ncswallowtail.org.

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Work Hard, Play Hard Building and maintaining a school butterfly garden is a great excuse to have a party.

Nothing beats doing good, hard work, and then celebrating your accomplishments.

When we started building our gardens we held our workdays on weekends, so whole families could come. It was a great way to get parents involved in the school.

We built raised beds – usually the best choice for a school campus that’s maintained by outside contractors inclined to mow down everything in sight. Many of our parents worked in construction, and they were delighted to contribute their skills.

Workdays included cookouts, art projects and other school beautification activities.

We often held them at the same time as our school book fair, and raffled off book fair vouchers. We made T-shirts – I Helped Build the Shamrock Butterfly Garden – which people still wear proudly.

We reached a peak with Wheelbarrow Day. Because our garden was in an inner courtyard, we had to dump new soil at the back of the school and haul it to the garden one wheelbarrow at a time. Parents and children joined in, the beds got filled, and we all had a great time.

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Winter As the year draws to a close, creatures prepare for winter.

Monarchs, Gulf Fritillaries and other migrating butterflies head further south.

Swallowtails hunker down in their chrysalises, and silk moths in their cocoons.

Moth caterpillars, most notably the blackand-red Woolly Bears, seek out sheltered spots. Changes in their internal chemistry allows them to survive even deep freezes.

Red-Spotted Purple caterpillars, which feed on black cherry, create hibernacula, small tunnels at the end of cherry leaves where they will spend the colder months.

Spiders and praying mantises fashion enclosures for eggs that will hatch in spring.

As you ready your garden for winter, keep these creatures in mind. Don’t clear the ground of the leaves that shelter caterpillars and cocoons. Look for chrysalises, hibernacula and eggs when you’re trimming back dead plants. What looks like a stray leaf snagged on a stem may have been carefully secured there to hide a sac of eggs. There’s a whole world out there that by design is hard to see.

Wait and watch.

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Butterfly Vocabulary Cat: Short for caterpillar.

Chrysalis: See Pupa.

Cocoon: Some moths spin silk cocoons and then pupate inside them.

Eclosure: A butterfly’s emergence from its chrysalis.

Exoskeleton: The strong outer skin that gives shape and structure to caterpillars and other insects.

Frass: Caterpillar poop.

Herbivores: Creatures that eat plants.

Hibernaculum: Enclosure that a caterpillar creates to spend the winter. The plural is hibernacula.

Metamorphosis: The transformation from egg to butterfly or moth. Metamorphosis has four stages: egg, larva, chrysalis/pupa, and butterfly/moth.

Mimicry: When one creature imitates another to gain some kind of advantage.

Nectar Plant: A flowering plant where butterflies find nectar. Many plants serve as both host plants and nectar plants.

Nectivors: Creatures that eat nectar.

Osmeterium: The set of bright orange horns that some caterpillars use to startle predators.

Parasites: Creatures that feed off other creatures while they’re still alive.

Host Plant: A plant whose leaves nourish specific caterpillars.

Pheromones: Chemicals sent out by female silk moths to attract males.

Instar: Caterpillars grow, but their skins, also known as exoskeletons, do not. So they have to shed. Each time a caterpillar sheds a skin, the new stage is called an instar. Most caterpillars go through five instars from egg to chrysalis/pupa.

Predators: Creatures that hunt, kill and eat other creatures.

Larva: Caterpillars are formally known as larva.

Pupa: The stage in which a caterpillar makes a hard shell and transforms into a moth or butterfly inside it. The plural is pupae and the verb is pupate. Butterfly pupae are also known as chrysalises.

Scavengers: Creatures that find and eat dead plants and other creatures.

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Butterfly Resources Guides Butterflies of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia: A Field Guide. Harry E. LeGrand Jr., Jeffrey S. Pippen, Derb Carter, Jr. and Pierre Howard, University of North Carolina Press.

Caterpillars of Eastern North America: A Guide to Identification and Natural History.

David L. Wagner, Princeton Field Guides.

Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard. Loree Griffin Burns, Henry Holt and Company.

The Life Cycles of Butterflies: From Egg to Maturity, a Visual Guide to 23 Common Garden Butterflies. Judy Burris and Wayne Richards, Storey Publishing Company.

The Milkweed Lands: An Epic Story of One Plant, Its Nature and Ecology. Eric Lee-Mäder, illustrated by Beverly Duncan, Storey Publishing Company.

Milkweed, Monarchs and More: A Field Guide to the Invertebrate Community in the Milkweed Patch. Ba Rea, Karen Oberhauser and Michael A. Quinn, Bas Relief Publishing Group.

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The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs: Discover Amazing Butterflies, Moths, Spiders, Dragonflies, and Other Insects! Judy Burris and Wayne Richards, Storey Publishing Company.

Stokes Butterfly Book: The Complete Guide to Butterfly Gardening, Identification, and Behavior. Donald and Lillian Stokes and Ernest Williams, Little Brown and Company.

What’s Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon? And Other Questions about Moths and Butterflies. Rachel Ignotofsky, Penguin Random House.

History Chrysalis: The Story of Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. Kim Todd, Mariner Books.

Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World. William R. Leach, Penguin Random House.

Children’s Fiction The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Eric Carle, Putnam/Philomel. Carle mistakenly has his caterpillar spin a cocoon and emerge as a butterfly. Only moths spin cocoons. But it’s still a fabulous book.

An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly. Laurence Pringle, Orchard Books.

Websites The Butterfly Highway (ncwf.org/habitat/ butterfly-highway). Information and resources for creating North Carolina butterfly habitats.

The Caterpillar Lab (thecaterpillarlab.org).

Wonderful site with amazing caterpillar pictures and lots of great merchandise that can be used in school programs.

Jeff Pippin’s Carolina Butterflies Page (jeffpippen.com/butterflies/nc-butterflies. htm). All sorts of information on butterflies found in North Carolina, as well as other butterfly-related subjects.

Journey North (journeynorth.org/monarchs).

Citizen science Monarch tracking that you can join. Includes fall/winter hibernation reports from Mexico. Journey North also tracks many other migrations, including those of hummingbirds and robins.

Learning from Butterflies (ncswallowtail.org).

The companion website to this book.

Monarch Watch (monarchwatch.org).

Information on Monarchs and Monarch migration, including tagging.

Sells tagging kits.

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Illustrations Photographs by Pamela Grundy

Page 13: Pipevine Swallowtail chrysalis

Cover: Monarch

Page 14: Eastern Black Swallowtail

Title Page: Monarch Caterpillar

Page 15: Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars

Copyright: American Snout

Page 16: Tiger Swallowtail

Dedication: Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar

Page 17: Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars

Table of Contents: Eastern Black Swallowtail

Page 18: Spicebush Swallowtail chrysalises (2)

Welcome left: Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillar

Page 19: Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars, egg

Page 1: Gulf Fritillary Page 2: Eastern Black Swallowtail

Page 20: Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars, chrysalis, hatching eggs

Page 3: Eastern Black Swallowtail eggs, caterpillar

Page 21: Pipevine Swallowtail, eggs

Page 4: Butterfly garden with milkweed, bronze fennel, bee balm, mountain mint

Page 22: Monarch

Page 5: Eastern Black Swallowtail egg, Buckeye Page 6: Eastern Black Swallowtail laying eggs

Page 23: Monarch caterpillars Page 24: Milkweed pod releasing seeds Page 25: Aphids, milkweed beetles

Page 7: Variegated Fritillary caterpillar, Monarch caterpillar

Page 26: Gulf Fritillary caterpillar

Page 8: Common milkweed flower with visitors

Page 27: Gulf Fritillary eggs, butterfly, chrysalis

Page 9: Skipper on aster

Page 28: Sulphur chrysalis

Page 10: Oak

Page 29: Sleepy Orange, Sulphur caterpillars

Page 11: Cedar

Page 30: Skipper on native coral honeysuckle

Page 12: Spicebush Swallowtail

Page 31: Skippers

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Page 32: Clearwing Hawk moth Page 33: Saddleback caterpillars, Promethea moth, brown Hawk moth

Page 51: Students observing Monarch chrysalis, Gulf Fritillary caterpillar, tagging a Monarch Page 52: Tagged Monarch release

Page 34: Female luna moth

Page 53: Students releasing Monarchs

Page 35: Luna moth caterpillar, cocoon

Page 54: Shamrock butterfly garden

Page 36: Full-grown Hickory Horned Devil

Page 55: Shamrock parents building butterfly garden

Page 37: Regal Moth, early stage caterpillar

Pages 56: Winter garden

Page 38: Green Anole lizard

Page 58: Sleepy Orange

Page 39: Hercules beetle, native bees

Page 61: Eastern Black Swallowtail

Page 40: Polyphemus moth caterpillar

Page 63: Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars

Page 41: Caterpillar frass, shed face masks, caterpillar raising equipment

Page 65: Monarch

Page 42: Shamrock preschoolers, Luna caterpillar Page 43: Luna eggs, Luna caterpillar Page 44: Pupating Monarch caterpillars Page 45: Monarch chrysalis Page 46: Newly eclosed Monarch Page 47: Monarch chrysalis Page 48: Luna moth cocoon Page 49: Polyphemus moth cocoon Page 50: Shamrock first graders

Back cover: Underwing moth, Saddleback caterpillars