Butterfly House – September 2026

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The Roston Native Butterfly House is open until the first week in October and there are still plenty of butterflies to see: Tiger Swallowtails, Diana Fritillaries, Giant Swallowtails….and more. It has been very hot even for my morning shifts but there are still plenty of people visiting – some from out of town. It is still one of my favorite volunteer gigs.

The usual cecropia moth caterpillars are still eating and, more recently, there have been Imperial Moth caterpillars too.

There are stilt-legged flies around too – looking at ants…until they fly!

The pawpaw fruit is ripening and falling from the trees. I brought one home and ate it last week. I’m keeping the seeds damp and will plant them in my yard – not in the place where I already have 7 young trees!

I’m hoping that my upcoming shifts will be a little cooler….and will miss spending time with the butterflies and their visitors when the house closes.

Butterfly House – June

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I had 4 morning shifts in the Roston Native Butterfly House in June. The weather was getting hotter and the house was full of active butterflies and caterpillars…the moths were, as usual, sleeping in their cage.

On the first shift of the month, it had been wet the night before and I noticed a lot of tulip poplar leaves on the floor when I first walked in. Right after I took this picture, I noticed there were a lot of tiger swallowtail caterpillars on the floor too! Fortunately, I hadn’t stepped on one. Getting them off the floor became the priority…and then picking up all the leaves and cleaning frass off the table/sweeping the floor. I was glad I had gone in 30 minutes before opening so I had time to get it all done.

I don’t take pictures every shift…it depends on how many people come in. On one morning there were multiple field trips that came through – so no pictures from that day! I did get pictures of several kinds of caterpillars: tiger swallowtail, pipevine swallowtail, and cecropia moth.

The female Diana Fritillaries were the ‘big, beautiful butterflies’ of the month but there were some monarchs and zebra swallowtails that I photographed as well.

On the way down to butterfly house, I often stop by the rain garden near the Botanical Center. There were milkweed seed pods just beginning to form and skippers visiting the cone flowers there.

June was a good month in the house…I was surprised that with all the rain showers coming through that all the shifts I signed up for remained dry!

Butterfly House Trees

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I decided to document the trees in the Roston Native Butterfly House during one of my recent shifts. All of them are there to provide food for certain caterpillars. So here is a tree tour of the house…starting on the right side as you enter the trees are

Wafer ash for Giant Swallowtail caterpillars

Hackberry for Hackberry Emperor caterpillars

Spicebush for Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars

Pawpaw for Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars

False Indigo for Silver Spotted Skipper caterpillars

Black Walnut for Luna Moth, Polyphemus Moth, and Red Banded Hairstreak caterpillars

(turning back toward the front of the house…looking at the trees on your right)

Tulip poplar for Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars

Black Willow for Red Spotted Purple caterpillars

Of course, there were lots of butterflies and a just-emerged Cecropia Moth that I couldn’t resist photographing too!