Symbol of summer

Butterflies are beautiful creatures that nearly everyone likes. They are a symbol of summer, so are a welcome sight for most in the spring as they herald warmer days to come. They are sun-loving creatures that float around & bask in the sun on flowers as well as a few other places they think are comfortable.

Have you noticed New Zealand seems to have only a few Butterflies, with the only commonly seen species being the Small White Butterfly. There are 17 native species in New Zealand & 10 of these are lowland species, so are fairly easy to spot. There is also 2 migrant species that get to our shores fairly often from Australia, another one that occasionally visits, plus 3 others that seldom bother to visit us!

New Zealand is blessed to have a range of colourful Butterflies that come in all sizes from small to large. The aim of the nzButterfly.info website is to help you identify each species & learn how to encourage them to your place. The nzButterfly.info website will also give you a guide to where & when to look for each species.

Technical Words are placed within the text of the website, but chances are it's underlined & is a link to the pop-up Glossary. This enables you to look up the word without going to glossary page & losing you place in the text. If you use a popup blocker or just like reading glossaries, then there is always a link to the glossary page in the 'Learn More' menu on the top of each page.

This website has still got a long way to evolve & improve. nzButterfly.info wishes to have several new sections included soon around the areas of gardening & identification. There will be other improvements too, especially on some of the information given as there is more research needed to fill gaps. So please keep an eye on this site as it will be offering more information when it comes to hand. If you feel you could help, then you may want to check the 'Help Out' page. Alternatively, if you have knowledge or ideas to share, then Register on the forum, Discuss.nzButterfly.info.

Donate a photo please. Do you have photo's to donate to nzButterfly.info?
There is many donated photo's already on the site & full credit is given to the photographer by the picture & on the Acknowledgments page. However, nzButterfly often gets photo's of the same species, so in these cases can't promise to use them. Photo's can be emailed via the address on the contact page (under 'Your Say' menu at the top of the page).

Flying in September

Red Admiral
Yellow Admiral
Monarch
White Butterfly

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~        New ID Guide
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Look through our new ID Guide which shows all of the Butterflies that can be found in New Zealand.

Thank you for the donated photos;

Attapon Tansakul
Byron Radford
Dave Boyle
Jérôme Albre
John Early
Mike Lusk
Norm Twigge
Roger Frost
Taffy Parry
Tony Wills
Vicky Steele