76 Amazing Facts About Butterflies You Never Knew

Amazing Facts About Butterflies You Never Knew

Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.
The process by which a caterpillar magically transforms into a butterfly, aka metamorphosis, is completed in 10 to 15 days, depending on the species.
There are more types of insects in one tropical rain forest tree than there are in the entire state of Vermont.
Many butterfly species are polymorphic and have the ability to blend in with their surrounding environment.
Butterflies cannot fly if the air temperature falls under 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Since butterflies are cold blooded animals, they cannot regulate their body temperature, which renders them completely immobile in cold weather.
Butterflies don’t taste with taste buds, but rather sensors located under their feet.
The Giant Swallowtail Butterfly is one of the biggest butterfly species on the planet, with wings spanning from 4 to 7 inches.
Butterflies have a long, tube-like tongue called a proboscis that allows them to soak up their food rather than sip it.
In 1958 Entomologist W.G. Bruce published a list of Arthropod references in the Bible. The most frequently named bugs from the Bible are: Locust: 24, Moth: 11, Grasshopper: 10, Scorpion: 10, Caterpillar: 9, and Bee: 4.
Many butterflies can taste with their feet to find out whether the leaf they sit on is good to lay eggs on to be their caterpillars’ food or not.
However, while the Monarch is the only butterfly to cover this wide a distance, many butterfly species flee weather conditions in the winter, such as the Clouded Skipper, Red Admiral, Cloudless Sulfur and American Lady just to name a few.
There are over 17,500 recorded butterfly species in the whole world. Out of this number, 750 can be found in America.
Most insects are beneficial to people because they eat other insects, pollinate crops, are food for other animals, make products we use (like honey and silk) or have medical uses.
Butterflies can vary greatly in size. The biggest butterfly specie has a 12 inch wingspan, while the smallest ever recorded only covers half an inch.
The wings of butterflies move in a figure 8 motion.
Skipper butterflies fly so fast they could outpace a horse, but most butterflies fly at 5 to 12 miles per hour (8 to 20 kilometers per hour).
The Cabbage White specie of butterfly is the most commonly found in the US. While they are called Cabbage White, they are characterized by their two black markings at the top of their wings.
There are about 24,000 species of butterflies. The moths are even more numerous: about 140,000 species of them were counted all over the world.
“Puddle clubs” are groups of butterflies that gather at wet soil to suck up salts and minerals.
Butterflies belong to the Lepidoptera class of insects which are characterized by their large scaly wings.
Many adult butterflies never excrete waste – they use up all they eat for energy.
The North American Monarch is one of the species that has been the most severely impacted by recent climate changes, with their numbers seeing dips and spikes over the last few years.
The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepterix rhamni) has the longest lifetime of the adult butterflies: 9-10 months.
Butterfly wings move in a figure “8” motion.
The adult butterfly only lives 3 to 4 weeks in average.
Male butterflies engage in what is called “puddling”. In fact, many male butterflies get nourishment by drinking water from mud puddles, which allows them to extract much needed minerals.
Some butterfly species are extremely fast. As a matter of fact, the Skipper Butterfly can fly faster than a horse can run.
A group of butterflies puddling together is referred to as a “puddle club”.
The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!
Some butterfly species lay their eggs on only one type of plant.
Butterflies are essentially cold-blooded.
Some Case Moth caterpillars (Psychidae) build a case around themselves that they always carry with them. It is made of silk and pieces of plants or soil.
Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches.
Some people say that when the black bands on the Woolybear caterpillar are wide, a cold winter is coming.
A group of butterflies is sometimes called a flutter.
The females of some moth species lack wings, all they can do to move is crawl.
The caterpillars of some Snout Moths (Pyralididae) live in or on water-plants.
Scientists thought butterflies were deaf until the first butterfly ears were identified in 1912.
Butterflies can see beyond the ultraviolet spectrum and their eyes consist of a network of 6000 lenses.
Many insects can carry 50 times their own body weight. This would be like an adult person lifting two heavy cars full of people.
Despite popular belief, butterfly wings are clear – the colors and patterns we see are made by the reflection of the tiny scales covering them.
Representations of butterflies are seen in Egyptian frescoes at Thebes, which are 3,500 years old.
Monarch butterflies are the only insect in the whole world that travels over 2,500 miles on average every winter.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.
Some species of butterflies drink blood coming from open wounds of other animals.
Some butterflies have been seen drinking blood from open wounds on animals.
People eat insects – called “Entomophagy”(people eating bugs) – it has been practiced for centuries throughout Africa, Australia, Asia, the Middle East, and North, Central and South America. Why? Because many bugs are both protein-rich and good sources of vitamins, minerals and fats.
Monarch butterflies migrate to escape from the cold, not to procreate contrarily to popular belief.
Contrarily to popular perception, the wings of butterflies are totally clear and the colors we see are the effect of light reflecting on the tiny scales covering them.
Butterflies are cold blooded creatures for the most part.
Many scientists thought butterflies were completely deaf until they first identified butterfly ears in 2012.
Males drink from mud puddles to extract minerals that aren’t available in flowers. This behavior is known as “puddling.”
Some moths never eat anything as adults because they don’t have mouths. They must live on the energy they stored as caterpillars.
Their eyes are made of 6,000 lenses and can see ultraviolet light.
In some areas, the number of feeding caterpillars on plants is so great that you can actually hear them munching. Thus, manners are not important in butterfly society.
The Morgan’s Sphinx Moth from Madagascar has a proboscis (tube mouth) that is 12 to 14 inches long to get the nectar from the bottom of a 12 inch deep orchid discovered by Charles Darwin.
There are 165,000 known species of butterflies found on every continent except Antarctica.
The Common Buckeye Butterfly is considered as one of the most striking species of butterflies with its wide upper wing bars and big, multicolored eyespots.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar was no joke – the first meal after a caterpillar hatches is usually the eggshell from which it has just emerged.
The first thing a caterpillar eats after it hatches from its cocoon is usually the shell of the cocoon itself.
Some butterflies can be very picky about where they lay their eggs. As a matter of fact, some butterflies will only lay their eggs in one type of plant.
Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera have been found.
Butterflies have long tongues that are shaped like tubes that gives them the ability to soak up food instead of sipping it.
A group of butterflies is known as a flutter.
Butterflies and insects have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies, called the exoskeleton. This protects the insect and keeps water inside their bodies so they don’t dry out.
Butterflies vary in size – the largest species may reach 12 inches across, while the smallest may only be half an inch.
Monarch butterflies journey from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and return to the north again in the spring.
The time it takes a caterpillar to evolve into a butterfly is usually between 10 and 15 days depending on the particular specie.
There are over a million described species of insects. Some people estimate there are actually between 15 and 30 million species.
In some places, you can find so many caterpillars feeding on plants that you can actually hear them munching.
YOU can eat bugs! Try the “Eat-A-Bug Cookbook” by David George Gordon , 10 Speed Press. Don’t want to cook them yourself? Go to HotLix for all sorts of insect goodies! My favorites are “Cricket-lickit’s” – a flavored sucker with a real edible cricket inside.

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