Pieridae and tips for creating a butterfly garden

Pieridae family

These are commonly know as the Whites, Sulphurs and Orange tips. The family has a world wide distribution, and the adults are generally found in open, sunny areas. The wingspan ranges from 22 - 70 mm. A typical Pierid flight pattern is a low, looping zig-zg.

Brimstone butterfly, Gonepteryx rhaemni.

The brimstone butterfly on the left, I have drawn the male colouring on the left wing and the paler female colouring on the right. The males are the only bright yellow butterfly in the British Isles. The female is much paler and is sometimes mistaken for a cabbage white butterfly. The brimstone is fairly common in central and southern England. Adults fly from March to October and hibernate over winter. Wingspan is about 5.6 cm. The caterpillars feed on buckthorn and alder buckthorn.

Initially the caterpillars (see left) stay together to feed, but soon separate to feed alone. They break down the mustard oils in the leaves they eat and sequester them in their body as a chemical defence making themselves taste horrible, so predators avoid them. The yellow/green and black colouration is also a warning to predators that they do not taste nice. Once it has reached full size the caterpillar stops feeding and starts to climb to find somewhere to pupate. It is at this stage that we can see the caterpillar climbing the walls of houses to pupate under gutters, around windows and in crevices.

On the right is a chrysalis with the skin for its final larval moult hanging just below it.

Flight speed has been recorded as 2.5 metres per second with a wing beat of 12 per second. Compare this with other insects.

Main Lepidoptera page

On the right is a table of plants giving the common name and latin name. All of these plants are beneficial to butterflies at some stage in their life. Even if you have a windowbox you can help by planting it with one or more of these.

Your butterfly garden can be any size at all - these days every little bit helps. So think of the space down the side of you garage, or the back of your compost bins. In these little used spaces you can allow the less attractive (to humans) but vital (to wildlife) wildflowers to grow. And in your garden itself you can plant up some of the more attractive species of wildflowers. Do remember that the beautiful butterfly which delicately sucks nectar though its coiled tongue was previously a chrysalis needing an undisturbed habitat to metamorphose in, and before that a caterpillar (a bag joined at one end by a mouth, and the other by an anus), whose sole aim and desire was to eat as much of its desired plant as possible, and before that an egg that, like the chrysalis, required an undisturbed location.

Most of these plants will benefit other beneficial insects such as bumblebees, as well as butterflies.

If you are concerned about the invasiveness of any of these plants then you can do what I do with my mint (a thug if ever a plant could be called one). I plant it up in a large plastic pot and put that in the ground with just a centimetre of pot rising above the surface. This is enough to stop the mint spreading and taking over the entire bed. I do have to dig up any seedlings though, but I am rewarded by the wonderful smell of crushed mint as I do so!