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Butterfly LivesFind Butterflies
 

Discover Northern Virginia Nature: Butterflies
Click here for the butterfly list for Merrimac Farm WMA and here to learn more about gardening for butterflies.

 
 

Butterflies are fun and easy to observe. They can be found everywhere, from your backyard to stream banks to fields. Warm sunny days between mid-April and mid-October are especially good times to hunt for butterflies. The flight periods of some species last only a few weeks, so look often. When looking for good spots, consider what most butterflies like: sunshine and flowers. The best possibilities are open areas and in dappled light along forest edges, especially where flowers are in bloom. The variety of butterflies increases with the size and diversity of the habitat.

 
             
SWALLOWTAILS
Papilionidae
Pipevine Swallowtail
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Zebra Swallowtail
Black Swallowtail
Spicebush Swallowtail
 
   
             
WHITES & SULPHURS
Pieridae
Cabbage White
Falcate Orangetip, male

Clouded Sulphur
Orange Sulphur
Cloudless Sulphur
 
Checkered White
             
 
Little Yellow Butterfly
Sleepy Orange Sulphur
 
   
         
             
GOSSAMER WINGS
Lycaenidae
Harvester
Red-banded Hairstreak
Banded Hairstreak
Henry's Elfin
Pine Elfin
Juniper Hairstreak
 
             
 
Gray Hairstreak
Eastern-tailed Blue
Summer Azure
     
       
             
BRUSH FOOTED BUTTERFLIES
Nymphalidae
American Snout
Variegated Fritillary
Great-spangled Fritillary
Meadow Fritillary
Pearl Crescent
Silvery Checkerspot
 
             
 
Question Mark
Mourning Cloak
American Lady
Painted Lady
Red Admiral
 
             
 
Buckeye Butterfly
Red-spotted Purple
Viceroy
Hackberry Emperor
Tawny Emperor
Northern Pearly Eye
 
             
 
Appalachian Brown
Little Wood Satyr
Carolina Satyr
Common Wood Nymph
Monarch
 
   
             
SKIPPERS
Hesperiidae
Silver-spotted Skipper
Lont-tailed Skipper
Southern Cloudywing
Northern Cloudywing
Juvenal's Duskywing
Horace's Duskywing
 

Long-tailed

             
 
Wild Indigo Duskywing
Common Checkered Skipper
Connom Sootywing
Swarthy Skipper
Clouded Skipper
Least Skipper
 
             
 
Fiery Skipper
Peck's Skipper
Tawny-edged Skipper
Crossline Skipper
Little Glassywing
Sachem
 
             
 
Northern Broken-Dash
Southern Broken-dash
Delaware Skipper
Zabulon Skipper
Dion Skipper
Dun Skipper
             
    Ocola Skipper