One Tough Butterfly

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

- Laura Lane

Imagine boarding a plane and flying to a new city. In this new place, you discover delicious foods you’ve never eaten before. You like the weather—it’s warm and sunny, so you can play outside, but it’s not too hot. You love this place so much that you decide to stay.

And if you’re a butterfly, you don’t even need an airplane ticket.

Meet the Quino

For hundreds of years, quino checker spot butterflies have lived in brushy spots of Southern California and Mexico. A quino is a medium sized butterfly, about the size of a large paper clip. Its wings sport jazzy red, black, and white checks. 

In spring, female quinos lay their eggs on a small flowering plant called dwarf plantain. The female quino can tell when she lands on one by tasting it with her two front legs. You have taste buds in your tongue, but butterflies taste with their feet. Different species of butterflies like to lay their eggs on different kinds of plants. These egg-laying favorites are called host plants.

The eggs hatch about a week and a half later. The caterpillars eat through their eggshells and begin munching on dwarf plantain leaves. The eating season is short—soon the dwarf plantains wilt and die in the dry summer heat.