The Nature of Things

Common Buckeye with Gulf Fritillary 

Common Buckeye butterfly, Junonia coenia , in three poses. The Common Buckeye is a beautiful and strikingly marked butterfly that is supposedly present in my area of Southeast Texas throughout most of the year, but I see it most often in autumn and I think of it as an autumn visitor. With its prominent eyespots and the wide white bar across its forewing tips, it is definitely one of the most easily identified butterfly species that appears in my backyard. It is a relatively common butterfly and it is resident throughout the southern states and into Mexico. It cannot long survive freezing temperatures at any stage of its life cycle, but in some of our milder winters here, I will see the butterfly around my yard into December and even January. In the spring, it moves northward quickly and colonizes most of the United States and all the way into southern Canada. It may produce two or three generations before fall adults begin their southward migration. Those arriving adults along with the...