Thistle blooms provide a midday meal for a gulf fritillary butterfly at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shares boundaries with the refuge, which is home to more than 330 native and migratory bird species, along with 25 mammal, 117 fish, and 65 amphibian and reptile species.

An orange blister beetle sits on a wildflower called Cirsium nuttallii (Nuttall’s thistle) in a field at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 13, 2023. The center shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Along with wildflowers, Kennedy and the wildlife refuge are home to more than 300 native and migratory bird species, 65 amphibian and reptile species, and more than 1,000 different types of plants.