For half a century, Atala butterflies were nearly impossible to spot in Florida, a state where they once thrived. Fortunately, there has been a decades-long community effort to plant native flowers vital to the Atala's survival, and it's finally paying off.
“It shows if you put something in your yard, you get something in return,” Craig Huegel, a wildlife biologist, told WUSF NPR.
The butterfly – which has black wings, beautiful blue spots, and a red body – relies on coonties (a type of drought-tolerant palm) as their preferred host plant. They flock to coonties to lay eggs and provide a food source for future generations of hungry Atala caterpillars.
The coontie plant used to grow wild throughout Florida, but they were largely wiped out in the 1920s due to…
