Some butterflies cover enormous distances to find the environments that best suit their needs. But not Edith’s checkerspot. Named for the checkered color pattern on its wings (and, it’s assumed, for an unknown woman named Edith), this North American butterfly (Euphydryas editha) is an unusually sedentary species. Generation after generation, populations of checkerspots, tend to stay in the same spot, close to a stand of their favorite food plant, be it paintbrush, owl’s clover, plantain, or something else.
