There are many yellow or sulphur butterflies here in South Florida, and lucky for us they are present all year round. The most abundant of the sulphur butterflies are the orange barred sulphur, the dainty sulphur and the cloudless sulphur.

They have several things in common: They are yellow in color with some variations, and they lay their eggs on cassias or sennas (legumes) or trees and shrubs in that same family which provide food for their larvae.

They actually originated in the West Indies and settled in Florida; the theory is they were either blown in on a hurricane or arrived on imported plants. All sulphurs are very rapid fliers, darting back and forth, which makes them one of the hardest butterflies to photograph.

I usually refer to the sulphur butterflies as the butterflies on crack because their crazy flying habits sometimes look out of control. Even their mating ritual, twirling around each other upward to the sky, is just unbelievable.

They are very attracted to red flowers for nectar. I'm suggesting the big red pentas. All butterflies love this plant, but they are also attracted to the color yellow.

Actually, I've seen this happen many times; butterflies may follow someone wearing red or yellow clothing in the butterfly garden.

Like some other butterflies, the pupa of the sulphurs grows transparent right before they emerge, so you can tell almost immediately if it's going to be a female or male butterfly by the coloring showing through the chrysalis right before they emerge.

The orange barred sulphur is the largest sulphur we have in South Florida. The male is a brilliant yellow and has two spots of orange on its fore wings, and its hind wings are edged with a thick orange band. The female is bright yellow, and its hind wings are edged in a brilliant orange.

In the fall, the females will turn more orange and then turn almost a paper white in the summer.

Butterflies do change their colors with different seasons to adapt, for protection mainly, but also because of change of temperature and daylight as well.

The cloudless sulphur is also a yellow butterfly here in Florida, but it generally tends to be more of a lime green color.

They are a smaller butterfly than the orange barred sulfur but their coloring is just beautiful and they are very numerous here as well.

The sleepy orange sulphur is yellow with brown running on the outside of both fore and hind wings. Smaller than most sulphurs (less than 2 inches), they fly closer to the ground than most. Like all sulphurs, they also are attracted to the color yellow.

The large orange sulphur is a brilliant pure orange and the female has some dark spotting on the underside of their wings. The wild tamarind tree is also a host plant for this butterfly.

There are many more sulphur butterflies, but these are the most common here in South Florida.

I've noticed an unusual trait of the sulphur butterflies that I have never seen in any other butterfly. If you raise them in rearing boxes, as I do, if one pupates and forms a chrysalis, it's possible other caterpillars in the rearing box will eat the newly formed chrysalis. I suggest you remove chrysalis immediately or separate the caterpillars into a new rearing container.

Keep butterflying. Help save the Monarch butterfly and plant milkweed.

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