WETlands
a publication of Sungei Buloh Nature Park
Vol 6 No 1
Apr 99

Butterflies and their food plants

Traditional
Prawn Harvesting

Birdsketching Workshop

Nature Talks
at Sungei Buloh

Insectopia:
Land before time about the insects at Sungei Buloh

Tree
Climbing Crabs
in Singapore Mangroves

Rhinoceros
Beetle

Atlas Moth

Sungei Buloh
5th Anniversary Celebrations

Volunteer Annual General Meeting

Otters in Sight and a Masked Finfoot sighting		  
Butterflies and their
Food Plants

James Gan tells about
the steps taken to enhance
your experience at
Sungei Buloh Nature Park
Have you noticed a profusion of flowering shrubs at the Visitor Centre lately, especially when you take a stroll from the carpark to the reception counter? In recent months, we had started on a planting programme designed to highlight and increase the butterfly population in the Park.

Through our surveys involving staff and volunteers, we have noted that a number of flowering shrubs are favoured as nectar drink stations by a large number of butterfly species. These are plants like the Lantana (Lantana camara), Singapore Rhododendron (Melastoma malabathricum), Common Asystasia (Asystasia intrusa) and Common Snakeweed (Stachytarpheta indica). We have planted more of them within the Park to attract the butterflies.


Singapore Rhododendron
 While the flowering shrubs provide adult butterflies with adequate nectar food for their brief life (butterflies in their adult form usually live between two to four weeks), their corresponding caterpillars may not fancy the leaves and shoots of those flowering shrubs. Thus, we have increased the numbers of caterpillar host plants. Examples of such plants are the Cat's Whiskers (Cleome ciliata), Chempaka (Michelia chempaka) and Curry Leaf Plant (Muraya keonegii).

Have these initiatives borne fruit or rather butterflies? Studies are on going but we noticed that our plants have caterpillars feeding hungrily on them.

So come down to the Park and be enthralled by our insects with painted wings fluttering amidst greenery and flowering shrubs.

Note: The ideal conditions, and times for butterflies is on a slightly breezy sunny day (10am and 4pm).
More articles about butterflies
at Sungei Buloh

Butterfly-Plant relationships
at Sungei Buloh
(Vol 7 No 2, Aug 00)

List of butterflies
at Sungei Buloh
(1999-2000)
(Vol 7 No 2, Aug 00)

Butterfly Monitoring and Introduction
at Sungei Buloh
(Vol 6 No 3, Dec 99)

Butterfly Appreciation
(Vol 5 No 3, Nov 98)
   
© Sungei Buloh Nature Park