Sarasota is a city of arrivals. Spring breakers flood our quartz-sand beaches, the return of the rainy season promises summer blooms, and snowbirds reappear with the first breezy whisper of mild winter.

Recently, a once-forgotten local quietly made its way back into the mix. The iridescent Atala butterfly (Eumaeus atala), with its inky black wings, orange-red abdomen and bright blue polka dots, has taken up residence everywhere from roadside medians to swaths of sidewalk downtown, far from the lush gardens or manicured parks where one might expect to find it.

But the real wonder isn’t how it looks or where it’s found. It’s that it exists at all. 

Once referred to as the “most conspicuous insect in semitropical Florida,” the Atala was considered extinct as recently as 50 years ago, the ill-timed consequence of urbanization and the overharvesting of its host plant. Like all butterfly species, the Atala relies on its host—in this case, the coontie plant (Zamia integrifolia)—to complete its reproductive cycle. Females lay eggs on the coontie’s leaves, which later become the sole source of food for the newly hatched caterpillars.

Unfortunately for the Atala, it wasn’t alone in its taste for the plant.

The coontie, an evergreen shrub belonging to a primitive group of non-flowering plants called cycads, flourished in the Mesozoic era. The only native cycad in North America, the coontie was prized by the Calusa and Seminole tribes, which processed its stems into flour for food. European settlers adopted the practice, and by the late 19th century, some commercial mills, including Nabisco, were grinding up to 20 tons of coontie flour per day. Since the coontie takes nearly a decade to mature, it was harvested directly from its tropical hammocks, coinciding with Florida’s unprecedented land development and the start of World War I. The coontie’s starch-rich rhizomes became a core element of ration packs and animal crackers, and the plant was exploited to near-extinction. With it went the Atala. The once-prolific butterfly made a swift, devastating exit from the ecosystem.

But in 1979, Florida naturalist and author Roger Hammer stumbled upon a tiny Atala colony off the coast of Miami. Word spread to the state’s small but passionate conservationist community, who transferred the Atala survivors to botanical gardens and wild areas where the coontie plant still grew. Reunited with their host, the Atala wasted no time settling in. They repopulated with such vigor that one botanical garden placed newspaper ads asking citizens to take home the caterpillars, hoping to spare its coontie plant collection from being eaten down to the stems.

At the same time, the coontie was returning to cultivation for reasons unrelated to its edibility or pollinator perks. Its high drought tolerance, ability to thrive in sun and shade, minimal pruning requirements and soil adaptability made it a practical landscaping choice for developers and city planners. As urbanization intensified into the 1990s, the traditional landscaping industry—typically unconcerned with native plants and their environmental impacts unknowingly began creating pockets of suitable habitat for the Atala throughout southern Florida.

This accidental alliance between the industry’s needs and coontie and Atala conservation soon found reinforcement in a broader cultural shift. In 1993, the Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program, a collaborative effort between the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, formalized a set of practical, science-based guidelines for sustainable yards and public spaces. New legislation promoted native plants that require less irrigation, fertilizer and maintenance than their imported ornamental counterparts. Ecological landscaping was on the rise.

“The Atala is the epitome of a Florida-friendly landscaping success story,” says Jackie Lebouitz, an entomologist and the Chemicals in the Environment Agent at Sarasota County’s UF/IFAS Extension. The rise of the Atala isn’t just a talking point for her—it’s a daily reality. Steps from her office, dozens of the butterflies drift from blossom to blossom on coontie plants.

Before joining UF/IFAS, Lebouitz worked at a butterfly breeding facility, where she reared Atalas by hand, a role that brought her in close, continuous contact with the species. This intimacy is clear when she carefully reaches out for a nearby butterfly, placing it atop her hand. “They’re magical,” she says, as the Atala dances across her palm. “It’s nice to see people implementing these changes in their landscapes and seeing the results.”

Sarasota was ahead of the curve. From early efforts like the 1994 Florida House Learning Center, the first green building open to the public in the entire country (unfortunately shuttered in 2022 by the Sarasota County Commission and given to the Manatee Sarasota Building Association), to forward-thinking conservation ordinances, the city embraced sustainable design long before it was a hot topic. In 2001, it passed a rule requiring that 75 percent of vegetation be “Florida-friendly,” accelerating the spread of plants like the coontie and, by extension, Atalas. Unlike more mobile butterfly species, the slow-flying Atala doesn’t travel far, only repopulating in areas where its host is already accessible. As a result, in highly developed areas like downtown Sarasota, the Atala is becoming an increasingly familiar sight.

“Whenever I’m downtown, I enjoy seeing the Atalas flying around,” Lebouitz says. “It makes for a peaceful and serene environment. They’re such majestic little creatures.”   

Kendall Southworth is the co-author of the book Florida’s Aquatic Butterfly Gardens.