Written by Rick Borchelt
Butterflies are a great barometer of the health of our environment – because they spend part of their lives as caterpillars eating leaves and other vegetation, and part as adults visiting flowers and other food sources, they can be exposed to many contaminants that give us an early warning of problems in the ecosystem. Butterflies are often used as an early signal that critical habitat is being eroded or lost because many of them are finicky about the kind of habitat they require and have a narrow range of plants they can feed on.
