When I first moved here, I was pretty much a city girl. I had always wanted to live in the country, but never really had. I was young and definitely moving on a budget, so I opted for acreage over a fancy home. When I bought this place (with help from my folks. Thanks, Mom and Dad!) the property was very wild. There was about a two foot wide circle of grass around the older, and not well kept up single wide mobile home. Over the years I (and the dogs and goats) cleared a good bit of about four acres. I have left the back four acres totally untouched, and there are several patches of wildflowers that I leave go on the front four, too. Partly, I like the flowers, though by fall some of the bushes are looking pretty weedy, but mainly I love the butterflies that they attract!

One of my favorite butterflies that frequents the wildflowers, are the zebra longwings. Incidentally, the zebra longwing is the state butterfly of Florida (so I must not be the only one that really likes them!). They are a pretty, black and yellow striped, medium sized butterfly that is found in the extreme southern United States into Mexico, and South America. They are longer lived than most butterflies because they eat not only flower nectar, but also pollen. The extra energy they gain by eating pollen allows them to extend their lives from a few weeks to six to eight months.

Adult zebra longwings will produce several generations of offspring during their lives and their caterpillars are also very beautiful. They are mostly white with a few black or orange spots, and some impressive black spikes extending from their bodies (what predator would want to touch that!). They live almost entirely on the plant where they were hatched and eat new leaves and leaf edges while they grow to be large enough to form a crysalis. I’ve always had quite a few zebra longwings around, but this year there were a lot more, especially around the passion fruit vines. With a little research I discovered that one of their favorite flowers to feed from is the passion fruit flower. Since I’ve always liked the zebra longwings, that’s just one more reason to hope the passion fruit vines do well again next year!