Near Extinct Butterfly Species Revived by G-Star Environmental Class!

 

Have you ever heard of the Atala Butterfly or the Coontie plant, the Zamia Pumila, which it lives on? We haven't either, but we recently found out that they were on the brink of extinction. That is until we discovered that one of our teachers, Mrs. Renee Rasha and her students, had been planting the native coontie host plant around our campus for years to attract the Atala Butterfly. Just a week ago they finally recruited the beautiful Atala butterfly to the G-Star Campus! That blew us away! It can be spotted around our enhanced G-Star Tropical forest (between Buildings J and K). Now keep in mind that this magnificent butterfly was believed to be extinct in the wild a few years ago, but now not only has it shown up on our campus, Mrs. Rasha and her students actually witnessed an Atala coming out of its chrysalis which was quite a beautiful sight to see. We now have many Atala butterflies growing in our garden!

 

Botanist Chris Lockhart verified the Atala butterflies, eggs, chrysalises, and herbivory on our native Zamias and alerted researcher Sandy Koi, a graduate student specializing in this butterfly at University of Florida.

 

G-Star is now on Ms. Koi research map and is interested in any more information, observations that we can tell her about our Atalas.

 

For the past two days, Mrs. Rasha and her students have tended to the Tropical Forest area, checked on the caterpillars, planted six Zamias, watered all newly planted plants, and raked leaves (using them as a natural mulch, smoothing them across the forest floor).

 

As you can see this is another occasion on which we have made history at G-Star School of the Arts. This is a very proud and momentous occasion for G-Star. To start a brand new ecosystem for a species of butterflies believed to be extinct and have them appear at our school is beyond words! We are very excited about this project and are fortunate to have students that care so deeply about this matter and our environment. That’s what we here at G-Star try to do! We hope to continue making exceptional achievements like this as we move on towards the future.