Mount Rainier National Park Pollinator Guide 🐝 🦋
This ID guide can be used to help you or others ID pollinators - butterflies and bumble bees - that are found in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state (U.S.)
Silver-bordered Fritillary
Color: Upperside orange with black markings. Underside of hindwing with rows of metallic silver spots; postmedian spots small and black.
Wingspan: 1 3/8 - 2 1/8 inches (3.5 - 5.4 cm)
Host plants: Violets including Viola glabella and V. nephrophylla.
Adult food: Favorite nectar sources are composite flowers, including goldenrod and black-eyed susans.
Overwintering stage: ...more ↓
Little Yellow
Color: Upperside of male forewing yellow with wide black apex. Hindwing with black border. Female yellow or white (rare) with black borders. Both sexes with small black spot in forewing cell.
Wingspan: 1 1/4 - 1 3/4 inches (3.2 - 4.4 cm)
Host plants: Partridge pea (Cassia fasciculata) and wild sensitive plant (C. nicitans) in the pea family (Fabaceae).
Adult food: Nectar from ...more ↓
Red Admiral
Color: Upperside is black with white spots near the apex; forewing with red median band, hindwing with red marginal band. The winter form is smaller and duller, summer form larger and brighter with an interrupted forewing band.
Wingspan: 1 3/4 - 3 inches (4.5 - 7.6 cm)
Host plants: Nettle (Urticaceae); Mulberry (Moraceae)
Overwintering stage: adult
Mate-Location system: ...more ↓
Painted Lady
Color: Upperside is orange-brown with darker wing bases; forewing with black apex patch and white bar on leading edge; hindwing submarginal row of 5 small black spots sometimes has blue scales. Underside has a black, brown, and gray pattern with 4 small submarginal eyespots.
Wingspan: 2 - 2 7/8 inches (5.1 - 7.3 cm)
Host plants: More than 100 host plants have been noted; favorites ...more ↓
Mourning Cloak
Color: Short projections on both wings, borders irregular. Upperside is purple-black with a wide, bright yellow border on outer margins, and a row of iridescent blue spots at the inner edge of the border.
Wingspan: 2 1/4 - 4 inches (5.7 - 10.1 cm)
Host plants: Willows including black willow (Salix nigra), weeping willow (S. babylonica), and silky willow (S. sericea); also American elm ...more ↓
Monarch
Color: Upperside of male is bright orange with wide black borders and black veins; hindwing has a patch of scent scales. Upperside of female is orange-brown with wide black borders and blurred black veins. Both sexes have white spots on borders and apex. The Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) is a Mullerian mimic; it has similar coloration and is also distasteful.
Wingspan: 3 3/8 - 4 ...more ↓
Great Spangled Fritillary
Color: Large. Upperside of male tan to orange with black scales on forewing veins; female tawny, darker than male. Underside of hindwing with wide pale submarginal band and large silver spots.
Wingspan: 2 1/2 - 4 inches (6.3 - 10.1 cm)
Host plants: Various violet species (Viola).
Overwintering stage: unfed newly hatched caterpillars
Mate-Location system: patrolling
Flight: ...more ↓
Gray Hairstreak
Color: One tail on hindwing. Upperside blue-gray with large red spot near tail. Underside of spring/fall form is dark gray, summer form is paler gray. Relatively straight postmedian line is white, bordered with orange on the inside edge.
Wingspan: 7/8 - 1 3/8 inches (2.2 - 3.5 cm)
Host plants: pea (Fabaceae) and mallow (Malvaceae) families including beans (Phaseolus), clovers ...more ↓
Common Wood-Nymph
Color: Geographically variable. Wings are brown. Upperside of forewing has 2 large yellow-ringed eyespots. Lowerside of hindwing has a variable number of small eyespots. Southern and coastal butterflies are larger and have a yellow or yellow-orange patch on the outer part of the forewing. Inland butterflies are smaller and have the yellow forewing patch reduced or absent.
Wingspan: 1 3/4 ...more ↓
Cabbage White
Color: Upperside of wings white; forewing with black tip. Two submarginal black spots in female, one in male. Underside of hindwing and forewing apex evenly yellow-green or gray-green. Spring and fall short-day form is smaller, less yellow, with reduced black areas.
Wingspan: 1 3/4 - 2 1/4 inches (4.5 - 5.8 cm)
Host plants: Many in the mustard family (Brassicaceae) and occasionally ...more ↓
Clouded Sulphur
Color: Upper surface of male wings bright, clear yellow with solid black edging; lower side of forewing with some dark submarginal spots; hindwing with silver cell spot rimmed with orange-pink, usually doubled. Female has 2 forms: yellow form with uneven black edging enclosing yellow spots, and a white form which is greenish-white rather than yellow. Spring and fall forms are smaller and less ...more ↓
Orange Sulphur
Color: Quite variable. Upperside of male yellow with orange overlay, yellow veins, wide black border, and dark black cell spot. Female yellow or white with irregular black border surrounding light spots. Underside hindwing spot silver with 2 concentric dark rings, and a spot above it.
Wingspan: 1 3/8 - 2 3/4 inches (3.5 - 7 cm)
Host plants: pea family (Fabaceae) including alfalfa ...more ↓
