Guides Corner

THE BUTTERFLY ZONE: THE CONDENSED VERSION
Notes for Our Volunteers

This is a condensed version of the graphic panels in the exhibit. We've included the basic concepts and some of the more pivotal information here.

Three additional background notes for you:

1. One of our goals with this exhibit is to get visitors to understand that life as we know it wouldn't be possible without pollination - no flowers, no plants, no fruit. It's a critical natural process and some very important insects and animals do the work.
   
   Our hope is that knowing something like this might make people think twice about using toxic insecticides or yanking native grasses and plants. Our actions have a huge impact on these delicately balanced relationships.



2. The entry "classroom" is there to stop any butterflies from leaving the Special Exhibits gallery.



3. As you'll see on the "Butterfly Bungalow," this little building is there to stop the spread of any parasites or diseases that the pupae may be carrying. Many of these are shipped in from out of state and we are required by the USDA to hatch the pupa in this contained space.

POLLINATION BASICS

• Plants grow from seeds. To make a seed, pollen from one flower of a species needs to get to another flower of the same species. This is called "pollination." The DNA in the pollen grain (male) fertilizes an egg cell in the ovule (female). Then seeds are formed that can sprout into new plants.
• The first flowers evolved about 130 million years ago. Flowers did, and still do, two things. They protect a plant's reproductive parts, but more importantly, they attract pollinators that actively carry pollen from flower to flower.
• As flowers evolved, so did their pollinators, the bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, birds, bats and other small animals. Flowers evolved colors, shapes and scents to attract the pollinators. At the same time, the pollinators developed eyes, scent receptors and mouthparts to fit specific flowers.
• Flowers attract pollinators most often by providing food, shelter, and oils and scents that attract mates. This trade of food or shelter for pollination benefits both plants and pollinators.
• Pollinators don't carry pollen because they want to. It sticks to them when they go to feed or take shelter in a flower. Most plants provide food for their pollinators in the form of sugary nectar or extra pollen.
• Pollinators carry pollen on their heads, bodies or legs, whichever comes in contact with the anther. In the next flower, the stigma is in position to receive the pollinators' pollen load.
• The pollen itself is "packaged" inside flowers whose shapes have evolved to attract specific pollinators. Flat disks offer their pollen to all that come. Pollen in bell- and funnel-shaped flowers is available for those that can hover. Sturdy flowers hold up heavier pollinators such as birds, while more delicate blossoms only support lightweights like butterflies. Flowers in the pea and mint families have even developed a sturdy lower petal that provides a landing site for their pollinators.

BEES are the most important pollinators in the world. There are at least 20,000 species of bees and nearly all visit flowers to feed. Bees and the flowers they pollinate evolved together. Each developed special features that make pollination easier.

Nectar is often hidden deep inside flowers. When bees crawl into the flowers, they gather pollen into pollen baskets on their legs or collect it accidentally on their body hair. Because each flower contains only a small amount of nectar, bees visit many flowers. In the process, they carry pollen from one flower to the next.

• In a single trip, a worker bee visits 50 to 100 flowers. She then returns to the hive carrying more than half her weight in pollen and nectar.
• The honey we eat is nectar from plants. Honeybees suck up the nectar, then regurgitate it over and over to reduce the amount of water the honey contains.
• Bees see yellow, blue and purple flowers. They also see colors in the ultraviolet spectrum.
• Wasps don't make honey from nectar like bees do. Adult wasps eat the nectar as it is and feed bees and other insects to their young.
• Bees collect nectar and pollen. Nectar is mixed with enzymes and exposed to air to produce honey. Bees feed both honey and pollen mixed with nectar to their larvae.

BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS are closely related. Most butterflies are active during the day but moths may be active during the day or at night. Both butterflies and moths sip nectar through a long, flexible tube called a proboscis. When not feeding, the insects coil the proboscis up under their head.

Butterflies find their food by sight and are attracted to vividly colored flowers, especially red. The flowers they pollinate produce plenty of nectar, often in long tubes too deep for bees. Butterflies also feed at flowers that are flat or disk-like so they can watch for hungry birds.

Moths that are active at night find their food by sight or smell. Flowers pollinated by these moths typically open at night, are white or pale-colored, and release a strong, sweet scent. These flowers may be flat or drooping and their nectar is usually at the end of a long, narrow tube. The flowers evolved their scent and shape to make it easier for the moths to find the nectar, and pollinate the flowers, at night.

• Butterflies taste the flowers they land on before they ever uncoil their proboscis. They have taste buds on their feet!
• Butterflies see bright red, orange, yellow and pink flowers.
• Butterflies and moths first appear in the fossil record about 70 million years ago.
• Moths are attracted to white flowers with strong, fresh scents.
• Put butterfly plants in the sunniest spot in your garden so the butterflies can warm themselves in the sun's rays.

BIRDS that eat nectar don't have a strong sense of smell, so flowers that birds pollinate don't have much of a scent. Birds do see colors, though, more colors than people do. So bird-pollinated flowers have evolved bright, eye-catching colors.

Plants that birds pollinate have also developed structures that make access easier for the birds. They usually stand out from the plant's leaves so hovering birds can fly right up.

Since most birds can't hover, some plants have evolved landing platforms. These come in the form of a strong stem below a flower, a stiff spike running between blossoms or an especially sturdy petal at the bottom of the flower.

HUMMINGBIRDS In North America, 150 or more plant species have evolved flowers attractive to hummingbirds. These flowers are usually tube-shaped, red and contain lots of sugary nectar. The flowers are also spaced so that a hummingbird hovering at one flower doesn't shred the next with its wings.

Drawn by the flower's bright color, a hummingbird slips its bill inside. At the same time, its head rubs against the flower's stamens and pistil. The bird drops off pollen from the last flower it visited, picks up pollen from this flower and laps up nectar all at once.

• Hummingbirds see orange and red flowers.
• Unlike other birds, hummingbirds move their wings in a figure eight pattern when they fly. This motion allows hummingbirds to hover in place and even fly backwards.

BATS find food by smell and most plants that they pollinate produce flowers with strong sour or cabbage-like scents. The flowers are usually whitish or pale colored since bats don't see colors. Most of the flowers are large enough for a bat's head. The flowers stick out or hang down from the rest of the plant so that the bats can reach them more easily.

• Plants that are pollinated by birds during the day and bats at night produce lots of nectar over a long period of time.
• We think about birds and insects pollinating plants, but not bats. These little mammals are essential to plants in tropical and desert ecosystems.
• Most bat-pollinated flowers produce lots of nectar and lots of pollen.
• Bats in the American Southwest migrate north from Mexico, following the cactus flowers as they bloom.
• Bats have been around for 60 million years or so.

BEETLES Magnolias, tulip trees and many other ancestral flowering plants are pollinated by beetles. In fact, scientists think beetles may have been among the first insects to pollinate these early angiosperms.

The first beetles showed up in the fossil record some 280 million years ago. At that time, they were scavengers. As flowering plants began to flourish 70 million years ago, the number of vegetarian beetle species began to rise, too.

Beetles are built for stomping, not sipping nectar. Instead of making nectar, beetle-pollinated flowers produce lots of pollen and floral parts for the beetles to munch. While some parts get trampled or eaten by the beetles, other parts remain standing until the beetles pick up their pollen.

Beetles are attracted to flowers with strong or fruity scents, not colors. Some beetles pollinate night-blooming plants whose flowers are often white so that the beetles can find them in the dark.

FLIES are also attracted more by scent than color. Fly-pollinated flowers are usually pale in color and their nectar is easy to reach. Plants pollinated by carrion-eating flies are the exception. They are often flesh colored and hairy. Insects first appeared about 350 million years ago. Their bodies evolved, changing as the flowers evolved. Modern insects finally showed up 30 million years ago.

• Flies first appeared 200 million years ago. They did not thrive until 100 million years ago when they paired with flowering plants.
• Flies that eat dead meat, or carrion-eating flies, see red, maroon and brown flowers.
• Gnats are very small insects, but these tiny flies are important pollinators.
• Fly larvae that hatch on flowers instead of dead meat die. But flies lay enough eggs in enough places that plenty of larvae survive.

TAKE CARE
Plants and pollinators are as strongly affected by human actions as by natural events. Spraying to kill one weed can accidentally kill an entire group of plants. Jimson weed is host to hawkmoth larvae. If the weed is killed, the larvae starve. If the larvae starve, the hawkmoths won't grow up to pollinate other plants. The same is true for insecticides drifting from crop fields. The insecticide may kill insects that pollinate wild plants including those that feed other wildlife.

Breaking habitat into small areas, or fragmentation, can be as bad as destroying it. If pollinators can't find their way from area to area, or if there are too few plants of one species in an area, the pollinators may die out. If the pollinators die out, the plants may die, too.

Monarch butterflies experience habitat fragmentation twice. First, monarchs perch by the millions in the coastal forests of California and northern Mexico during the winter. As these forests are logged for development and timber, the monarchs have fewer places to live four months out of the year.

Second, monarchs cover thousands of miles during their annual migration. Along the way, they must find blooming milkweed plants so they can feed and breed. The butterflies will not survive their trip if patches of milkweeds, goldenrod and Joe-Pye weed are too far from each other.