Enjoy the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area
440 acres adjacent to the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, University of Florida/IFAS
When the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory began its Volunteer Nature Stewardship Program for the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) in 1998, julia butterflies (Dryas iulia) did not range as far north as Indian River County. The first sighting at ORCA…
Diversity matters - at least to monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) are the larval host plants for monarch butterfly. Pictured above along Oslo Road is a monarch butterfly nectaring on scarlet milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), a non-native, commercially available…
You’ll see lots of zebra longwing butterflies in the shady hammock loop area at ORCA …
Heliconius charithonia
What’s going on back there under the passionvine foliage? Look closely…there are two Zebra Longwing Butterflies all a flutter, and a chrysalis. We’ll come back to that after some fun context.
Florida may claim it as our state butterfly, but so could Caribbean Islands and nations all the way into South America. The Zebras need passionvines for their hungry caterpillars, so I’ll guess without data that the butterfly’s range is related to that of the genus Passiflora. My wife Donna and I have several species of passionvines in our butterfly garden where experience shows the Longwings have their preferred species, such as Corkystem. When the caterpillars get on a bender along with Gulf Fritillaries, they can make short work of passion-foliage. I’ve never seen this written anywhere, but to my eye, these colorful butterflies darken into shadows in the shade, which they like to haunt…
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Often seen along Oslo Road at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) is the white peacock butterfly (Anartia jatrophae) shown above in a photo taken on an orchid stroll on June 27, 2020. This low-flying tropical butterfly "uses" three common…
