Pollinator
Gorgone checkerspot
Chlosyne gorgone
A prairie checkerspot patterned in orange, cream, and black.
- Family
- Nymphalidae (brush-footed)
- Wingspan
- 1.25 to 1.75 in (3.2 to 4.5 cm)
- Flight season
- Spring to summer
- Range
- Central North America
- Caterpillar food
- Sunflowers and their kin
- Conservation
- Secure and widespread
The gorgone checkerspot is a small prairie butterfly, checkered orange and black above and marked below with a zigzag band, a jewel of open grasslands.
It flies in one or two broods across the central plains and prairies, staying low among the flowers.
Caterpillars feed in groups on sunflowers and their relatives, so native sunflowers and coneflowers both feed and host it.
Plants for the gorgone checkerspot
14 caterpillar host plants and 14 documented nectar plants. Pick a role, then narrow with the filters below.
26 plants
Host + Nectar
1 of 2 Common Sunflower Helianthus annuus Nectar
Chokecherry Prunus virginiana Nectar
1 of 3 Wild bergamot Monarda fistulosa Host
1 of 3 Cutleaf coneflower Rudbeckia laciniata Host
1 of 2 New England aster Symphyotrichum novae-angliae Host
Cup plant Silphium perfoliatum Host
1 of 2 Orange coneflower Rudbeckia fulgida Nectar
1 of 3 Great blanketflower Gaillardia aristata Nectar
1 of 3 Plains coreopsis Coreopsis tinctoria Nectar
1 of 2 Tall goldenrod Solidago altissima Nectar
1 of 2 Showy milkweed Asclepias speciosa Nectar
1 of 2 Spreading dogbane Apocynum androsaemifolium Host
1 of 3 Maximilian sunflower Helianthus maximiliani Host
1 of 2 Compass plant Silphium laciniatum Nectar
1 of 2 Common wrinkle-leaved goldenrod Solidago rugosa Host
1 of 2 Giant sunflower Helianthus giganteus Host + Nectar
1 of 3 Prairie sunflower Helianthus petiolaris Host
1 of 2 Prairie rosinweed Silphium integrifolium Nectar
1 of 2 Sulfur buckwheat Eriogonum umbellatum Host
1 of 2 California sunflower Helianthus californicus Host
1 of 3 Sweet black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia subtomentosa Nectar
1 of 2 Engelmann daisy Engelmannia peristenia Nectar
Missouri goldenrod Solidago missouriensis Host
Silky aster Symphyotrichum sericeum Host
Slender sunflower Helianthus gracilentus Nectar
Woolly paperflower Psilostrophe tagetina
1 of 21 of 31 of 31 of 21 of 21 of 31 of 31 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 31 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 31 of 21 of 21 of 21 of 31 of 2No plants match those filters.
Sources
- Butterflies and Moths of North America ↗
- iNaturalist ↗
- Plant associations from GloBI flower-visit records and NPIN larval-host data. Butterfly photographs via iNaturalist (CC BY).