Endangered Florida butterfly species actually benefits from hurricanes, data shows

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One of the rarest butterflies in the country, the Schaus’ Swallowtail Butterfly, is benefitting from an event many people dread. 

A new study from the Florida Museum of Natural History shows hurricanes have positive impacts on the butterflies.  

Jaret Daniels is a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. He said the Schaus’ Swallowtail butterfly benefits because storms open up the canopy in the butterfly’s habitat.

“That allows sun to penetrate to the forest floor, creates sort of an abundance of new growth of the host plants of the butterfly, and also enables , sort of nectar, resources to sort of proliferate,” Daniels told WMNF.

That’s good news for the endangered butterfly. It’s native to South Florida and occurs exclusively on conservation lands. 

Sarah Steele Cabrera is a PhD Candidate at the University of Florida. 

“We had noticed, noticed this trend that a few years after a hurricane, even a very severe storm like Hurricane Andrew in 1992, there were lots of butterflies a few years later. And so it was exciting and rewarding to see those anecdotal observations born out in the data,” Cabrera said.

She and others made the discovery after combing through 35 years of data.

 Cabrera called the findings exciting.

“This is perhaps a call to look at it from a slightly, from a non-human centered perspective that you know, the plants, other animals, everything in this system is really adapted for hurricanes,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera and Daniels say their goal is to protect and grow the endangered butterfly.