Taylor’s checkerspot is a small butterfly with a wingspan of 26 to 43 mm, with a striking checkerboard pattern of orange-red, black, and cream/white on the wing surfaces. The underside is mostly orange with white bands. The thorax and abdomen are black with faint orange bands on the rear.
Males and females are visually similar and difficult to distinguish without close examination.
Taylor’s checkerspot produces one generation per year. Adults emerge in spring (usually April to May) with a flight period of roughly 10 to 30 days, during which they mate and females lay clusters of 20 to 100 eggs on host plant undersides. Eggs hatch after about 4 to 6 days, and young caterpillars feed together in communal silk nests on leaf undersides. Larvae have 5 developmental stages and when temperatures warm, overwintered larvae emerge, disperse seeking food and pupation sites. Pupation takes a few days, and the pupal stage lasts roughly 9 days before the adult ecloses. The entire lifecycle spans approximately one year including the winter dormancy.
The federal multi-species Recovery Strategy for Garry oak ecosystems calls for a number of conservation measures that will benefit Taylor’s checkerspot, including protecting habitat, identifying food plants, and developing techniques for establishing new populations.
Conservation breeding of Taylor’s checkerspots began in 2013 in a converted aviary on Denman Island. Two years later, we began releasing caterpillars into restored habitats on the island. Today, breeding has been moved to facilities at the Greater Vancouver Zoo, where we can produce thousands of caterpillars each year.
We work to support the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly by building the wild population in British Columbia, and to supplement partner efforts that restore and maintain habitat for the species.
In 2023 we plan to have:
Find out how Wildlife Preservation Canada is helping save native pollinators, including Taylor’s checkerspot, and how you can make a difference.
Plant native prairie wildflowers and host plants if you have property in the species’ range. Avoid pesticide and herbicide use on your land. If you spot a Taylor’s checkerspot, photograph and report it to the appropriate state wildlife agency to contribute to population monitoring. Finally, understand that this butterfly represents an entire ecosystem – its recovery leads to the restoration of prairie and savanna habitats that hundreds of other species depend on.
Q: How is Taylor’s checkerspot considered a "keystone" butterfly?
A: The Taylor’s checkerspot’s specialized dependence on rare Garry oak and native prairie ecosystems makes it a keystone species; an environmental indicator whose health reflects the health of the entire ecosystem. When checkerspot populations decline, it signals broader ecological degradation. Conversely, conservation efforts that restore habitat for this butterfly simultaneously restore habitat for dozens of other endangered species and hundreds of native plants and insects that share these rare ecosystems.
Q: What’s the story with the invasive ribwort plantain?
A: This is one of conservation’s trickiest problems. Some Taylor’s checkerspot populations have entirely abandoned their native host plants (marsh and thymeleaf speedwell) and depend exclusively on the invasive European ribwort plantain. While ecologists generally prioritize native plant restoration, removing European ribwort plantain from these sites would eliminate the food source that currently sustains those butterflies. Some reintroduction efforts are planting host plants in degraded sites, hoping butterflies will shift back to native plants, but success remains uncertain.
Q: Why is fire suppression so catastrophic for Taylor’s checkerspot?
A: Taylor’s checkerspots evolved in fire-maintained grasslands. Regular Indigenous-set burns kept meadows open, prevented tree encroachment, and maintained the sparse vegetation structure the species requires. When settlers arrived and suppressed fires for over a century, natural succession accelerated. Forests gradually closed over grasslands, shade increased, invasive plants spread, and host plants vanished.
Q: Could climate change make the situation worse for the Taylor’s checkerspot?
A: Yes, significantly. Climate change threatens Taylor’s checkerspots through multiple pathways: altering the timing of host plant leafing, shifting when butterflies emerge from diapause (creating phenological mismatches), changing precipitation and moisture regimes in prairie habitats, and extending drought periods that stress remaining populations. The recovery plan explicitly identifies climate change as a current and future threat that must be factored into habitat design and reserve selection.
