Making More Atalas

As we mentioned in a previous post, we are thrilled to be hosting the Atala butterfly for the first time in the BioWorks Flight Encounter. This butterfly, once so rare as to be thought extinct, is making a comeback in the southern part of Florida, so we're excited by the success we've had raising the species here in our controlled environment in Tampa. Our 50 or so Atala butterflies mated and laid plenty of eggs in the Flight Encounter on the coontie plants we provided, and now the larvae are hatched and doing very well.

These little caterpillars are chock full of defense mechanisms. As you might guess from the bright and contrasting coloration, these larvae are toxic to predators. They eat coontie, which contains cycasin, which gives them a natural toxicity of their own. The bright warning colors, known as aposematic coloration, warn predators to keep their distance. If this isn't enough, you can also see they are covered with fine hairs (setae) which would probably also be irritating at least to a predator's mouth or throat. It's unlikely a predator would try eating a second atala larva after snacking on the first.

We've noticed that the younger caterpillars tended to skeletonize the leaves, eating the surface but not the fibrous leaf structure itself. This might help them handle the toxins, and make it easier for them to digest the fairly tough coontie leaves. As they near full size, they begin to nibble the entire leaf to feed their insatiable appetites.

We expect this current "batch" of atala larvae will be done eating soon. They should spend a couple of weeks in chryalis, and soon we'll have a bunch of new lovely atalas filling the Flight Encounter once again!