The creatures your plants feed

A native plant isn’t decoration. It’s the bottom of a food web. Indigene names the butterflies, moths, bees, birds and small mammals each plant supports, and gives many of them a page and a photograph. Some are picky: a caterpillar that eats only one kind of leaf is a “host” relationship, and losing that plant means losing that creature.

How you use it

1. Open Wildlife to meet the animals the app knows. Narrow it by group (butterflies, birds…) or by region.
2. On any plant’s page, see which creatures it feeds.
3. On an animal’s page, see the plants that keep it going, and photos of it near you.

Starting from an animal

Want monarchs, or bluebirds? Open the animal, read Plants that support this animal, then tap Rank these for my spot to see which of them suit your garden. How your list is ranked has a goal for butterflies and one for birds.

At your own spot

Once you’ve logged what you planted, a saved spot shows the animals those plants can feed, and can look for photos of them taken nearby. See Saved spots.

An essential plant (ecologists say “keystone”) feeds far more creatures than its neighbors. Plant one and you’ve done the work of ten.

Goes well with

• 🔖 Saved spotsSee which animals your own plantings can feed.
• 📷 Linking iNaturalistWhere the wildlife photos come from, and how to add yours.
• 🥕 Will native plants bring pests?Will all those insects eat the vegetables? What farms measured.

Learn more

• What pollinators are and why they matter — U.S. Forest Service
• Identify and record the creatures you see — iNaturalist
• Bees, butterflies and other invertebrates, in depth — The Xerces Society