Fact Sheet #1:
Butterflying Basics
| Grand
Prairie Butterfly Club Fact Sheet #1: Butterflying Basics |
|
| Getting Started |
| 1. Get the right equipment:
a sturdy net, a good field guide or guides, and close-focusing binoculars
if you can afford them. 2. Become familiar with the field guide and learn the common butterflies of our area (see below). 3. Plant the top (and easiest) butterfly attracting plants. Nectar sources: butterfly bush, purple coneflower, and zinnia. Larval food sources: milkweed (monarch), parsley/dill (black swallowtail). 4. Make a butterfly feeder and fill with ripe or overripe melon, banana, apple, peach, mango, etc. |
|
Learn to identify the most commonly
seen
The following species are seen the most often either because they are very
common, very conspicuous, or both.butterflies in east-central Illinois |
||
| Orange Sulfur Clouded Sulfur Cabbage White Pearl Crescent |
Eastern tailed-blue Buckeye Painted Lady Monarch |
Black Swallowtail Spicebush Swallowtail Tiger Swallowtail |
| Distinguishing the Large Black Butterflies | |
| Mourning
Cloak |
Has a white outer edge to all wings |
| Red-spotted Purple |
Has orange spots near body on underside of hindwing |
| Pipevine Swallowtail |
Has single row of large orange spots in "C" shape
on underside of hindwing |
| Black Swallowtail | Has two uninterrupted rows of orange spots on underside
of hindwing |
| Spicebush Swallowtail |
Has two rows of orange spots on underside of hindwing;
row closest to body is missing one orange spot. |
| Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (black
female form) |
"Tiger stripe" pattern just visible on forewings;
single row of orange spots on underside of hindwing. |
| Giant Swallowtail |
Wing color is really more brown than black; large
yellow band extending from outer edge of upper forewing to body (so makes
a broad yellow lline all the way across forewings) |
