When asked to picture a pollinator, most people imagine a honeybee, bumblebee or butterfly, and with good reason – they get a lot of press, and they're exceptional pollinators. But there are over 350,000 species of pollinators worldwide, including bees and hundreds of thousands of other insects (surprisingly, beetles make up the largest volume of pollinating species), many birds, mammals such as bats, and even some reptiles. Colorado alone is home to over a thousand species of native pollinators! Many of these species have specialized adaptations to their local flora, making them particularly effective in their unique environments, which makes your own native pollinators especially important, wherever you live.

Pollinator Week is an annual celebration hosted by the Pollinator Partnership in service of bringing increased awareness and protection to pollinating species worldwide. Each year they designate a Pollinator of the Year - this year it's the swallowtail butterfly. There are over 550 species of swallowtails on Earth, which means there are likely some that live near you!

There are many ways to help pollinators like swallowtails thrive, but one of the most rewarding ways is to hatch your own! Here in Colorado, we like to plant (organic and pesticide-free) dill or fennel wherever we can, and usually around July or August we'll start to see black swallowtail butterflies visiting our plants to lay their eggs. Once we see tiny black caterpillars on our plants, we bring them inside with plenty of dill stalks and leaves to eat, and after days of eating and growing, they spin their cocoons and begin the process of metamorphosing into adult butterflies! After a couple weeks they emerge in their new bodies, ready to start pollinating. 

It's easy to search for native pollinators in your area, and you might be surprised to see how many species you previously overlooked. Next time you see a beetle, fly or moth visiting a nearby flower, thank them for their service and enjoy the world they've helped create!