Florida's Insects: Butterfly, Moth and Caterpillar |
 A butterfly's taste buds are on it's legs. They are microscopic hairs, called sensilla at the end of their legs.
A butterfly has hairs on its wings to detect changes in air pressure.
Queen Butterfly
Wing span: 2 5/8 - 3 7/8 inches. This is one of the Milkweed Butterfly's. It's caterpillar feeds on milkweed plants. The adult feeds on the nectar of milkweed, fogfruit and shepher's needle flowers. Some of the milkweeds contain poisons called cardiac glycosides which are stored in the bodies of the caterpillar and adult. These poisons are distasteful to birds and other predators. Unlike the Monarch this butterfly doesn't migrate. It stays in the south and is very common in the Florida Everglades.
Note: The Florida Viceroy is edible, but mimics the Queen in order to gain some protection from predators
White Peacock Butterfly
Wing span: 2 - 2 3/4 inches. Caterpillar's eat Water hyssop, Ruellia, and Lippia. Adult's feed on Shepherd's needle in Florida. You can find these butterflies in open, moist areas such as edges of ponds and streams, along shallow ditches, weedy fields, parks. They can be found from Argentina north through Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies to South Texas and southern Florida. Migrates and temporarily colonizes to central Texas and coastal South Carolina. A rare wanderer to North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas
Gulf Fritillary
Wing span: 2 1/2 - 3 3/4 inches. This butterfly lives throughout the year in south Florida and South Texas. In January-November it can be found in the north. Caterpillar's eat various species of passion-vine. Adults eat the nectar from lantana, shepherd's needle, and cordias. It lives in pastures, open fields, second-growth subtropical forest and edges, city gardens. It's range is South America north through Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies to the southern United States. Wanders north to the central United States but is rarely found northward.
Zebra Longwing Butterfly
This butterfly was adopted as Florida's state butterfly in 1996. It is common all year round in southern Florida, particularly in the Everglades. They fly slowly and don't startle easily. If you find one resting in the evening you can get it to climb onto your finger and return to the branch without frightening it. Zebras rest in groups at night and return to the same place every night. They eat nectar and pollen and can live nearly six months. The eggs are laid in Passion vines and the caterpillars eat this plant. This makes the adults poisonous. The caterpillar is white with black spots, black spines and a greenish head.
Ruddy Daggerwing
This butterfly is between 2 1/5 inches and 3 inches. It is orange or rust colored with black stripes. It eats figs, cashews, other fruits and milkweed. It is found in hardwood hammocks and thickets. It's range is from east Texas through Florida and south through much of Latin America.
The photo on the left was the best we could get of this beautiful butterfly.
The photo on the right is from www.enature.com.
 Cecropia Moth
With a wingspan of 5 to 6 inches, the Cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) is the largest North American moth. Here is a tree covered with caterpillar cocoons. These can sometimes kill trees. We have no photo of the adult moth but you can find a fantastic site concerning this large and beautiful moth at Pete Honl's Cecropia Moth Website
USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research: Butterflies of North America
A caterpillar has four thousand muscles. That's more than five times as many as a human.
 Unknown Caterpillar
Despite all our efforts we have not been able to find the name of this caterpillar. If you know please e-mail us at catiche@comcast.net
Florida's Poisonous Caterpillars
From the Department of Entomology and Nematology, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Document SP 107
 
Flannel moth caterpillar
Young (Left), Older (Right)
 
Buck moth caterpillar (Left)
Io moth caterpillar (Right
 
Hag caterpillarBoth photos
 
Saddleback caterpillar(Left)
Spiny oak-slug caterpillar (Right)
From all that I can find on poisonous caterpillars the Puss caterpillars is our bad boy! From a medical article concerning symptoms a Miami man developed after pruning trees comes the following statement: "The puss caterpillar (Megalopyge opercularis) is 1 of more than 50 types of caterpillars found in the United States that are poisonous and it is considered among the most dangerous." This unfortunate man never knew he had been stung.
 
Puss caterpillar Both photos
In Florida there are two generations a year, one in spring and the other in fall.
Check out the original web page for more information.
Department of Entomology and Nematology, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida
(I promised not to put photos on this site that we haven't taken ourselves but there have been so many questions concerning Florida's poisonous caterpillars that I had to and, if you haven't noticed by the lack of photos, even with wandering all over we don't run across poisonous creatures very often. )
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Gill Henry
