key point:
- Due to the minerals in blood, butterflies drink blood and many other fluids.
- Some butterflies, such as monarchs and nabis, migrate to warmer climates.
- Cookie butterflies make noise! Males will snap to defend their territory or find a mate.
- The taste buds of butterflies are on their feet!
“Do butterflies drink blood?” The answer to the question is yes. Now, they don’t attack people or animals to suck blood like mosquitoes or horseflies do. For one thing, butterflies don’t have those piercing mouthparts that can damage skin and capillaries. But, if provided, it sucks blood. It’s not that scary Butterflies only need the minerals in blood. They drink blood the same way they drink urine, tears, sweat, moisture from feces, and fluids that ooze from rotting fruit and rotting corpses. Indeed, there are many Surprise Butterfly Facts! Here are a few:
1. Zebra wings eat pollen
© iStock.com/ktreffinger
Many people think that all butterflies eat pollen and nectar. This is untrue. As far as biologists know, the zebra longwing is one of the few butterflies that actually eat pollen. It inserts its proboscis into the flower and moves it around to make sure the pollen sticks to it. The butterfly’s saliva allows the pollen to be digested immediately, releasing the amino acids that make up proteins. Because it can eat pollen, the zebra longwing lives longer than most other butterflies. Not only that, but the pollen turns into a cyanide inside the butterfly’s body, which makes it toxic to potential predators.
Florida’s state butterfly, this beautiful butterfly cannot be mistaken for its long, oval wings with black and white stripes like a zebra’s coat. It is also found in the Caribbean and South America. They lay their eggs on passionflower plants, but also gather nectar from lantana, verbena, and asters.
2. Butterflies are younger than moths
Lepidoptera, a member of the order that includes butterflies and moths, evolved about 200 million years ago. Butterflies probably appeared about 100 million years later in the mid-Cretaceous period.most butterflies belong to Papilioninae super family. There are 20,000 to 25,000 species of butterflies in the world, and many more species of moths.
3. The color of some butterflies is an optical illusion
Butterflies come in bright colors and intricate patterns. The pigments on a butterfly’s wings make up the reds, browns and yellows. However, new research suggests that some of the bright hues are due to structural coloring.
The scales cover the butterfly’s wings, hence the name. Lepis means “scale” and pterosaur Means “wings” in ancient Greek. The scales get their color because light hits them as they move. The scales bend and reflect light through structural coloring. These colors tend to be green, red and blue.
4. Some butterflies have long migration periods
Monarch butterflies, colorful butterflies and other butterflies travel thousands of miles. They navigate by orienting themselves towards the sun, and since they can see polarized light, they can drive even on cloudy days. Because butterflies are short-lived and fragile, these migrations take several generations to complete. For example, a trip to Africa and Northern Europe started by a painted lady could be completed by her great-great-great-granddaughter.
By the way, monarch butterflies don’t fly all the way to Mexico to breed. It goes there to get away from the cooler temperatures in the northern regions. Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is below 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and cannot fly at all if the temperature is below 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Go here to learn more about monarch butterflies.
5. The longest-lived butterflies live for about a year
Although the zebra longwing butterfly has a relatively long lifespan due to eating pollen, the longest-lived butterfly is the sulfur butterfly. There’s a little trick to sulfur’s longevity, as it takes nearly two months to develop from egg to caterpillar, to pupa, and finally to adult, which spends seven months hibernating. Because of its leaf-like wings, the brimstone can cling to branches while hibernating without being noticed by predators. It is distributed in North Africa, Asia and Europe.
Go here to see how long butterflies live.
6. Some butterflies make sounds
While most butterflies are very quiet when flying or feeding, another surprising fact about butterflies is that some do make sounds. Firecracker butterflies are notable because the males make popping noises when defending their territory or trying to attract a mate. Queen biscuit is a very beautiful member of this species. The male has rounded dark wings with metallic blue spots, and he makes a distinctive sound by flapping his wings. Females are larger and have a white band and metallic blue markings on the forewings. They also make a crackling sound.
7. A butterfly needs a number
88 A butterfly has the number 88 under both hind wings. The upper part of the butterfly wing is brown with a white oblique band on the forewing, but the underside of the forewing is orange with a brownish-white band, and there are 88 on the hind wing. This small butterfly lives in the rainforests of South and Central America and has a wingspan of 1.5 to 1.75 inches.
8. Butterflies vs Moths
Often, butterflies can be distinguished from moths because of their elongated antennae with knobs at the tips. The antennae of most moths are hairy or thread-like and have no protrusions. Moths are generally nocturnal, while most butterflies fly during the day.
Butterflies also tend to have slimmer bodies than moths, which tend to have strong and furry bodies. There are exceptions. Koh-i-noor and night butterflies fly at dusk, Uranium Branch Suspicious butterfly-like moths fly during the day, as do the male titan emperor moths. The female tauren moth flies at night.some dead bodies Nymphalidae Butterflies are also hairy and fat, including the jewel butterfly of Oceania and Southeast Asia and the great blue butterfly of Africa.
For more information on butterflies vs moths, read this.
9. Taste receptors on the feet
A butterfly’s sense of taste is in its feet, not in its proboscis. To get a taste of the plant, the female scratches it with her foot. This is important because female butterflies need to taste the plant and know what it is before laying eggs. Some caterpillars eat only one type of plant. These caterpillars include milkweed-eating monarch butterflies and passionflower-eating zebra longwings. Butterflies use their antennae to smell and check the wind.
10. Ants breed the most gray wolf family Caterpillar
gray wolf family Butterflies are a huge family of butterflies consisting of blues, reapers, hairlines, and coppers. A surprising fact about these butterflies is that many of them feed their caterpillars on ants. Large blue butterflies lay eggs on plants. Caterpillars eat to a certain size and then drop to the ground where they are picked up by ants. Ants do not kill and eat caterpillars because caterpillars release pheromones that mimic the pheromones of ant larvae. This makes the adult ants want to care for the caterpillar. So, they bring the caterpillar to their colony and feed it. The sounds made by other caterpillars mimic those made by the queen. Not only does this let the ant take care of it, but it puts its care above anything else in the colony.
A third, more nasty strategy is to have caterpillars mimic ant larvae while feeding on real ant larvae. Fortunately, sometimes ants use tricks to kill and eat caterpillars.
11. Butterflies don’t defecate
Most butterflies drink nectar (or blood, sweat, urine or tears), but they don’t defecate. One reason is that nectar is liquid and it is difficult to remove any solid waste from it. Plus, the butterfly’s digestion is so efficient that it uses every bit of food it eats for energy. However, if it eats too much, it may excrete the excess, and most of the fluid is nothing more than water.
12. Butterflies are slow
Skipper butterflies can fly at speeds of up to 37 miles per hour, but most butterflies are slower and don’t fly faster than 12 miles per hour. Butterfly wings also work in a figure-eight pattern, and their flight paths are notoriously erratic.
13. Some butterflies have transparent wings
If a part of a butterfly’s wing does not have scales, that part of the wing is as transparent as window glass. There are several species of butterflies with transparent wings. One is the large greasy butterfly of Oceania and Southeast Asia. The male forewings are almost completely transparent, and the hindwings have a large area of transparency. Gray scales appear on the wings of the female, but fall off quickly, leaving the wing surface greasy, hence the butterfly’s name.
Other butterflies with transparent wings are the black-veined butterfly in North Asia, Europe, and North Africa, and the esmeralda and small thyroid butterfly in Central and South America.
13 Surprising Facts About Butterflies
| 1 | Zebra wings eating pollen |
| 2 | butterflies younger than moths |
| 3 | The color of some butterflies is an illusion |
| 4 | Some butterflies have long migration periods |
| 5 | The longest-lived butterflies live for about a year |
| 6 | some butterflies make sound |
| 7 | a butterfly needs a number |
| 8 | butterflies and moths |
| 9 | taste receptors on the feet |
| 10 | Ants feed the most gray wolf family Caterpillar |
| 11 | Butterflies don’t defecate |
| 12 | butterfly is slow |
| 13 | some butterflies have transparent wings |
I am broadly interested in how human activities influence the ability of wildlife to persist in the modified environments that we create.
Specifically, my research investigates how the configuration and composition of landscapes influence the movement and population dynamics of forest birds. Both natural and human-derived fragmenting of habitat can influence where birds settle, how they access the resources they need to survive and reproduce, and these factors in turn affect population demographics. Most recently, I have been studying the ability of individuals to move through and utilize forested areas which have been modified through timber harvest as they seek out resources for the breeding and postfledging phases. As well I am working in collaboration with Parks Canada scientists to examine in the influence of high density moose populations on forest bird communities in Gros Morne National Park. Many of my projects are conducted in collaboration or consultation with representatives of industry and government agencies, seeking to improve the management and sustainability of natural resource extraction.
