As soon as a butterfly is fully levelled up, it gains its special ability. The butterfly's ability is shown in the Flutterpedia as soon as the butterfly is unlocked and the will turn into . There are two kind of special abilities: passive and active.

The passive ability adds 5% to the honeydew rate to all butterflies of the same set in the forest. The increased honeydew rate is up all the time – there is no button to activate it – and needs no time to recharge. It is indicated with a recharge rate of zero days ( 0d).
Butterflies with this ability become rare, as from time to time regular sets with this ability get new active abilities.

To use an active ability, you first need to tap a fully levelled butterfly and then the ability button . If it's an ability, which needs an object to be casted on, there will be a showing up on these objects (i.e. the gamble on attraction flowers ability needs to be casted on an attraction flower, to half the cost of the next pollen flowers shift you need to choose a pollen flower, and so on). Whenever no target for the ability is available, the button will be greyed out .
After using the ability the button will change and show the remaining time of the recharging time . The recharging time can be hurried with Flutterbucks.

The active abilities can either affect your gameplay, i.e. eggs and raising caterpillars and chrysalises, Attraction Flowers, honeydew earning, creating barkbugs, dandelions, storage resources..., expanding your forest, gifting and double pollen outcome, with a recharging times from 4 hours to 7 days – or just be for decoration with a recharging time of 4 hours.

Some butterflies received an upgraded special ability for completing their set during the time limit. They are easy to discover by their purple instead of blue special ability icon.

Gameplay Affecting Abilities

Note: There are many butterflies listed, which are only available during Butterfly Events or by buying it as Special Visitor. Event butterflies are bolded and shown in italics.
For comparison of Special Abilities have a look at the Butterfly Special Ability Comparison page including a sortable table.

+5% Honeydew Earning to Set Butterflies (All time up)

Aztec

Wayang

Maua

Eggs & Raising

Hurry a Caterpillar (24 hours to recharge)

Peacock
Zebra Swallowtail
Glauce Leafwing
Scarlett Leafwing (12 hours to recharge)
Common Brimstone
Smokey Orange Tip
Great Mormon
Sunset Daggerwing ( 8 hours)
Yellow-edged Giant Owl (12 hours to recharge)
Dark Pale Jezebel (12 hours to recharge)
Australian Lurcher (12 hours to recharge)

Hurry a Chrysalis (3 days to recharge)

Blue Doctor
Dark-Blue Tiger (24 hours to recharge)
Yellow Cracker
Great White Longtail
Southern Comma
Andromeda Phantom
Yellow Jezebel

Hurry an Egg (3 days to recharge)

Oak Blue
Eastern Black Swallowtail
Humboldt's Perisama
Shan Nawab
Southern Tailed Birdwing
Blue-banded Forester
Scarlet Peacock
Satanic Skipper
Paris Peacock Swallowtail ( 2 days)
Eastern Courtier ( 2 days)
''Male Yellow Pansy

Lay an Egg for free (7 days to recharge)
(This ability can also be used on the butterfly itself)

Attraction Flower Abilities

Create an Attract Flower (24 hours to recharge)

Upgrade an Attract Flower One Level (2 days to recharge)
(This only works on the flowers that appear in the sanctuary.)

Upgrade an Attract Flower to 100% (7 days to recharge)
(This only works on the flowers that appear in the sanctuary.)

Sulkowski's Morpho ( 5 days)
Diana Fritillary ( 5 days)

Special Ability§Attraction Flower Targeted

Harvest and Duplicate an Attract Flower (24 hours to recharge)

Comma
Amber Phantom
Andaman Mormon ( 12 hours)
Silver-washed Fritillary ( 12 hours)
Paper Kite

Harvest all Attract Flowers (24 hours to recharge)

Honeydew Harvest Abilities

Hurry a Butterfly (24 hours to recharge)

Make all butterflies take-off/Affectionately wake up all the butterflies (4 hours to recharge)
(All butterflies' honeydew ready to collect will be harvested)

Harvest all butterflies in the forest (24 hours to recharge)

Harvester Butterfly

Violetta Form with Double Honeydew (24 hours to recharge)

Tomato

Triple honeydew received from next harvest (12 hours to recharge)
(This can be used on any butterfly in your forest except the butterfly itself.)

All Nearby Butterflies Become Ready Instantly/Lovingly make surrounding butterflies ready (24 hours to recharge)

Creation Abilities

Create Bark Bugs

Wood White (5 every 6 hours)
Purple-Spotted Swallowtail (10 every 12 hours)
Monarch (3 every 4 hours)
Map Butterfly (5 every 6 hours)
The Waiter Daggerwing (10 every 12 hours)
Scylla Orange Emigrant (5 every 6 hours)
Banded Orange Awlet (5 every 6 hours)
Small Tortoiseshell (5 every 6 hours)
Zig-zag Skipper (5 every 6 hours)
Indian Skipper (5 every 6 hours)

Create Leaf Bugs

Fig-tree Blue (5 every 6 hours)
Milbert's Tortoiseshell (3 every 4 hours)

Create a Dandelion (24 hours to recharge)

Create a Petal (24 hours to recharge)

Fill forest with petals (2 days to recharge)

California Sister

Create a Frog Treat (24 hours to recharge)

Corinna Daggerwing
Wallace's Golden Birdwing

Create 3 Frog Delicacies (4 days to recharge)

Queen Swallowtail ( 3 days)
''Sickle-Winged Morpho ( 3 days)

Create a thoughtful gift from the Frog (contain 1–4 Frog Treat or on rare occasions a Frog Delicacy) (24 hours to recharge)

Noble Leafwing ( 8 hours)
Grey Pansy

Create Hidden Eggs (4 days to recharge)

Green Charaxes (one egg)
Forest Mother-of-Pearl ( 2 days) (three eggs)
Aranda Copper (one egg)
Leprieur's Glory (three eggs)
Pansy Daggerwing (three eggs)

Create a Hidden (Christmas) Present (4 days to recharge)

Punchinello (one christmas present)
Green Mantle ( 2 days) (three christmas presents)
Yellow Tinsel (one present)
Selina Tiger-stripe (three presents)

Create a Chinese New Year envelopes

Pale Grand Imperial (3 little envelopes)

Saturn (1 large envelope)

Create storage resources (24 hours to recharge)

Hewitson's Acraea
Edwards' Forester
Frosted Elfin
Bog Copper
Stoll's Hamadryad
Green-banded Line-blue
Falcate Acraea
Amazon Blue Cracker
Purple Sapphire
Green-underside Blue
Blue Duskywing
Gold Banded Forester
Natal Acraea
Matho Skipper
Large Slate Hairstreak
Golden Sapphire
Blood-red Acraea
Sleepy Orange
++ Northern Jungle Queen (4 days to recharge)

Pollen Flower Abilities

Half the Cost of a Pollen Flower's Next Shift (2 days to recharge)

Hurry a Pollen Flower (24 hours to recharge)

Change the Color of a Pollen Flower (5 days to recharge)

Large Fairy Hairstreak ( 2 days)
Great Stripestreak ( 2 days)
Flame-bordered Emperor ( 24 hours)

Forest Abilities

Double reward from a Leafbug or Barkbug.

Red Underwing Skipper

Double Pollen Effectiveness on a Butterfly for One Minute. (24 hours to recharge)

Double Pollen Effectiveness on the Bee Fly for One Minute. (24 hours to recharge)

Double Bee Fly's bounty. (24 hours to recharge)

Obi Island Birdwing

Give the Bee Fly love (4 hours to recharge)

Gamble on an Attract Flower to get a Flutterbuck (24 hours to recharge)
(The chance to succeed is about 50%)

Chop an Expansion Foliage (7 days to recharge)

Capture all frog treats in the forest (24 hours to recharge)

Great Jay

Bulk feed all forest Treats and Delicacies to the frog (24 hours to recharge)

''Slight-tailed Skipper

Social Abilities

Duplicate a Basic Gift from a Friend (24 hours to recharge)

Reset the Day's Basic Gift Counter (24 hours to recharge)
(~~This ability resets the gifting for the whole friendlist, so you are able to gift one person twice or more, depending on the amount of butterflies with this ability.~~ This changed and is not possible anymore with Update V 2.5. For more information visit the Friends page.)

Branded Imperial
Sachem Skipper
Mountain Snow Apollo
Cramer's Paradise Skipper ( 12 hours)
White Peacock
Eastern Red Lacewing
Scarce Swallowtail
Festive Skipper
Bolivian Sapphire

Send up to 25 Gifts to 25 Different Friends for 5 Minutes (7 days to recharge)

Queen Victoria's Birdwing ( 2 days)

Open all small gifts in the forest (24 hours to recharge)

Jamaican Giant Swallowtail

Reset the Store's Daily Deals (24 hours to recharge)

Wisp Abilities

Hurry the Wisp Mother (24 hours to recharge)

Sends the Wisp Mother into a frenzy (7 days to recharge)

Male Priam's Birdwing ( 5 days)

Duplicate a Wisp (16 Hour to recharge)

Attempt a capture on all wisps in the forest (24 hours to recharge)

Pale Swallowtail

Mission Abilities

Switch to a random Mission (24 hours to recharge)

Hurry a Mission (24 hours to recharge)

Selects a vaild butterfly for the current Mission (2 days to recharge)

Decorative Abilities (4 hours to recharge)

Trails

Stripy Trail

Five-bar Swordtail
Green Dragontail

Colorful Trail

Loruhama Eyemark

Rainbow Trail

Sunset Moth
Sarota Jewelmark

Small Trail

Big Trail

Superb Leafwing
Red Admiral

Trail of Clovers

Green Hairstreak

Graceful Trail

Expanding Trail

Explosive Trail

Sloane's Day-flying Moth

'Spooky, scary, skeleton Trail'

Red-barred Metalmark

'Easter Trail'

Felder's Bee Skipper

Leaf Trail

Viceroy

Summer Dust Trail

''Large Copper

Draws a Heart with a Special Trail

Blushing Phantom

Draw a Butterfly

Auras and Clouds

Sparkle Aura

Scary Poisonous Cloud

Misty Aura

Glitter Aura

Spicebush Swallowtail

Scary Noxious Cloud

Metallic Aura

Beauty Aura

Wispy Aura

Purple Hairstreak

Heart Aura

Tibetan Cupid

Aura of boomerangs

Male Orchid Flash

Fireworks Show

Launch a Firework

Uncle Sam Moth (Freedom firework)
Pale Mottle (Chinese New Year firework)

Miscellaneous

Make all butterflies land

Pipevine Swallowtail

Speedy Butterfly

Shrink Butterfly

Blue Morpho

Enlarge Butterfly

Make the Frog do a little dance

Broad-banded Demon

Other Creatures

Not only butterflies have Special Abilities, also the Buff-Tailed Bumblebee has an active special ability. It can double the amount of pollen of one shift of one pollen flower every 12 hours. Its ability has the same way to be used like any other active special ability with target.

Notes

All butterflies shown in italic and bold are limited and can be only obtained during their specific Butterfly Event or by buying as Special Visitor.
As soon as you put a butterfly to Storage its special ability's recharging time will be set full cooldown, even if the special ability wasn't on recharging time when put to Storage.
The special ability recharging time does accumulate further whilst the butterfly is on a mission.
If you send a butterfly boosted with Triple Honeydew on Next Harvest to a mission, it'll lose it's tripling boost, when it returns. This will also happen, if you level up a butterfly, which is boosted with Triple Honeydew on Next Harvest.

The previous Comma ability of only duplicating an attraction flower without harvesting had been changed to include harvest with Version 1.86 on 06^th June 2014.
During the Special Ability Weekend from 3^rd October – 6^th October 2014
all butterflies' and Buff-Tailed Bumblebee's Special Abilities were ready after the half time after usage. During the first 12 hours of the Event all abilities were set to a recharging time of 6 hours, which were fixed quickly.
During a Visiting Butterfly Bonanza visiting butterflies with the same Special Abilities and the same recharging time share the same cooldown.

Special Abilities