Gulf Fritillary Butterfly on a Zinnia

A Gulf Flitillary Butterfly snacking on a zinnia in the herb garden

Years ago zinnias nativized themselves in the herb garden adding a kick of mid-summer color to what is an otherwise green and brown landscape this time of year.

I was out there admiring them this morning when an orange butterfly flittered down and landed on one right in front of me. Paused on the flower doing that slow wing flap butterflies do, I noticed it didn’t really look like a Painted Lady or Monarch, which are the two orange butterflies we see all the time around here.

I snapped a couple photos of the creature on my phone and asked Google what it was. Google told me that it’s a Gulf Fritillary, which, while not rare here in California, is a lot more common along the Gulf of Mexico America from Texas to Florida.

The butterfly enjoying the zinnia

Some of the zinnias gone wild in the herb garden

Turns out the butterfly is also called the Passion Butterfly.” Not because it’s particularly emotional, but because members of the Passiflora plant family are a favorite food source. We happen to have a big passion fruit vine that covers a good portion of our deck cover up in the tropical garden, so suddenly the presence of this little Lepidoptera made sense.

I’ll have to keep my eyes out for these guys more often.