You may know it as Maracuya, grenadya or passion fruit. Purple passionflower ( Passiflora incarnata) has a round yellow fruit that is super tasty. Instead, humans love passion vines for their beautiful flowers and their delicious fruit. Passion leaves might be lunch for caterpillars, but they don’t taste good to humans and other animals. Passion vines ( Passiflora spp.) of all species are the food that our caterpillars eat the most, and where we lay our eggs. Did you know, most butterflies only live for a week or two, but we live for several months! Pollen gives us the strength to live a long life. Nectar is mostly sugar, but pollen is full of vitamins and protein. It also has lots of pollen, which we love! All butterflies drink nectar, but we Heliconians like to eat pollen as well. We Heliconians all love the Oolite room because it has our two favorite foods– Corkystem passion vines ( Passiflora suberosa) and firebush flowers ( Hamelia patens)! Firebush has delicious nectar that is a favorite for butterflies, bees, and even hummingbirds. But be careful to look at us with your eyes only! Catching us with your hands hurts our delicate wings. By contrast, Miami Limestone or Miami Oolite is a sedimentary formation deposited approximately 120 ka composed of ooids, calcium-carbonate grains typical of warm shallow seas like the Caribbean. We fly a bit slower than other butterflies so it is easy to see us gently gliding by. And then look up and see if you can spot us as butterflies. Take a look around and see if you can find us munching away on leaves. And guess what? Our caterpillars look like little aliens with spiky white or orange bodies and black spots. Can you guess which animal they look like? That’s right, a zebra! These butterflies are covered in stripes, but instead of black and white, they have black and yellow stripes. Zebra longwing butterflies are the easiest to find. They also have pretty white spots you can see when our wings are closed and black spots on their upper wing areas. Gulf Fritillaries are also orange but have a block chain pattern along the edges of their wings. Julias have beautiful orange wings and look almost like leaves. We look similar in size and shape, but we have a few ways you can tell the difference between us. We are all members of a group of butterflies called the Heliconias, so the three of us are like cousins. Here in the Oolite Room, you can spot three native butterflies– we are the Zebra Longwing ( Heliconius charithonia), Julia ( Dryas julia), and Gulf Fritillary ( Agraulis vanillae).
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