Butterfly Breathe

Butterflies are one of the most sensitive barometers of the entire environment! Their presence around our homes and gardens indicates a vital, healthy ecosystem; their absence indicates a serious decline in that ecosystems overall health.

Butterfly Breathe

All insects are aerobic organisms, meaning just like us, they need air to survive. Insects, like butterflies, take in air through tiny holes that run along their exoskeleton (outer skeleton), called spiracles. These tiny holes run along the butterflies thorax and abdomen. If a butterfly lives in an area with air pollution, the pollution will go straight into the butterfly's body.

Butterflies and Ozone

Monarch butterfly larvae feed on milkweed exclusively. This means that they only eat the milkweed plant, which would be like you only eating lettuce for every meal and snack! Unfortunately for the monarch, we produce an air pollutant called ozone, that is killing the milkweed. This leaves the caterpillar with nothing to eat!

Ozone, the air pollutant sounds really bad, but what people often don't realize is that there are two different kinds of ozone. The bad ozone, that kills the milkweed and can make us ill, is found close to the ground where all of the plants and animals can breathe it is. The other ozone is found way up high in the atmosphere. This ozone is far to high up in the sky for us to breathe and so does not cause us any health problems, in fact it protects our skin from the harmful rays from the sun. So if you hear about a hole in the ozone layer, they are talking about the ozone high up in the atmosphere that protects us from the sun.

Plant a Butterfly Garden

Butterflies like to land on certain flowers to gather nectar for food. The plants and flowers that they need cannot grow in certain places because the air is too dirty. You can plant a butterfly garden to encourage butterflies to your neighborhood, but remember to ask for permission first.

You'll need: flowers like purple coneflowers, black-eyed susans, marigolds, lilacs, goldenrod, hibiscus, day lilies, and other brightly colored flowers.

Directions: (1) Pick a large open space to plant these flowers as many of them are big;

(2) Make sure that the space  you pick gets plenty of sunlight- most of these flowers require 6-8 hours of sunlight a day;

(3) Plant the tall flowers in the back and the smaller flowers in the front;

(4) water them often and watch for butterflies.

Pesticides: Please don't use pesticides in your garden as these can kill butterflies and caterpillars. Careful use of insecticidal soaps is safer, though these can still kill caterpillars.