Common Buckeye

Common Buckeye Junonia coenia  #4440 is the only Buckeye regularly in our area.  You can find it in fields, roadsides and gardens.  It is in our Teaching Garden.  It is easy to identify because of its multicolored eyespots, light bar across near the wing tips, orange bars across the forewing cell and orange just inside the wing margins.  When feeding on the flowers, it turns around and around as it gets in position to get the nectar at each flower.  This causes it to frequently be seen upside down on a flower.  Like most butterflies, it visits a variety of flowers for nectar.  The host or larval plantfood are plantains, snapdragons, ruellia, toadflax and many others.