Regal Fritillary Conservation

Regal Fritillary Conservation. . , Since 2011, ZooAmerica^® has been involved in a cooperative project with Fort Indiantown Gap to raise Regal Fritillary butterflies for release into new areas of the state., The Regal Fritillary is a species of great conservation concern. They have disappeared from their entire historic range east of Indiana with the exception of a single population found at Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center. At this military installation, about ten miles north of Hershey, Regal Fritillaries thrive in the prairie-like landscape of the firing ranges., Each year in late August, ZooAmerica staff collects a few female Regals from these ranges as a source of eggs for our butterfly-rearing project. A single female can lay over 2,000 eggs. The newly hatched caterpillars consume their own eggshells before going into hibernation for the fall and winter. At ZooAmerica, we overwinter the hatchling caterpillars, both indoors in refrigerators in our butterfly lab, and also outdoors in beds of violets, bluestem grass, and nectar plants. In early spring, the caterpillars awake from hibernation and grow rapidly on a diet of violet leaves. They turn into pupae in about eighteen days., Our outoor setups are inside the greenhouse frames in front of you., In April the frames are covered with mosquito netting to prevent parasitic wasps from reaching the caterpillars and to contain the adult butterflies until they can be transported to a release site. In the fall, the netting is removed to prevent tearing from the weight of the snow. Adult Regals emerge from their chrysalides in mid-June through mid-July. If you are visiting during that time, you may see some of the butterflies in the greenhouse enclosures or observe us working inside., [Caption:] , The Regal Fritallary Life Cycle was created by Steve Rannels of Hershey. This shows the different stages of the butterfly and the food and nectar plants they use. See the matching key for more information.