Butterfly Food Plants

Caterpillar Food Plants
When butterfly biologists talk about food plants they mean the plants that caterpillars eat - and caterpillars are choosy about what they eat. In most butterfly publications there will be some reference made to these plants but in this CD-Rom there is more than a reference, there are photographs and descriptions of each one.

Sorting the Food Plants
You may also use the filter characters in the food plant package to help you sort the plants into groups. For example, you can look for all the wattles, sedges, mistletoes or grasses that are used as food plants.

You can also list all the species that are categorised as rare or threatened.

Finally you can list all the plant species used by any one species, or any combination of species of butterflies. For example you can list all the plants used by Jezabels.

Identification aids for food plants
Each plant species has been assigned a variety of characters upon which the software can be used to help with identification. For example, you may find butterfly larvae feeding upon a leafless shrub with small white flowers. The identification aids would allow you to determine that the shrub is probably one of only three species (two Choretrum and one Exocarpos).

Wattles - 26 species	Sedges - 14 species
Mistletoes - 10 species	Grasses - 26 species
Rare or Threatened Plants - 43 species	Food Plants for Jezabels - 14 species