- Butterflies are insects.
- A butterfly’s lifecycle is made up of four parts, egg, larva (caterpillars), pupa (chrysalis) and adult.
- Butterflies attach their eggs to leaves with a special glue.
- Most caterpillars are plant eaters (herbivores).
- Butterflies can’t hear, but they can feel vibrations.
- Butterflies taste with their feet.
- Butterflies don’t have lungs.
- Butterflies breathe through openings on their abdomen called ‘spiracles’.
- Butterflies smell with their antennae.
- Millions of shingle-like overlapping scales give butterfly wings their colour.
- Butterflies are still able to fly if their scales are removed, they are just less colourful!
- Butterflies are divided into two main groups called skippers and true butterflies.
- Female butterflies are usually bigger and live longer than male butterflies.
- The Queen Alexandra’s birdwing from the island of New Guinea is the largest butterfly – it can have a wingspan of 27 cm!
- Butterflies are found in every continent except Antarctica.
- Butterflies are cold-blooded and cannot fly if their body temperature is below 86 degrees.
- Butterflies have taste sensors on their feet, enabling them to tell whether the leaves they stand on will make good food for caterpillars.
- If a caterpillar is taught something, the memory may be retained by the butterfly it turns into.
- Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, discovered several species of butterfly, including Nabokov’s pug which he discovered in Utah in 1943.
- The fastest butterflies are skippers which can fly at 37mph, but most fly at 5-12mph.
- Butterflies have long, tube like tongues which work like a straw to suck up liquid.
- The butterfly stroke in swimming was invented by the German Eric Rademacher in 1926.
- In 1933, it shot to fame as a method of legal cheating at breaststroke, but it only became recognised in its own right in 1953.
- Some people say that when the black bands on the Woolybear caterpillar are wide, a cold winter is coming.
- The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!
- The females of some moth species lack wings, all they can do to move is crawl.
- There are more types of insects in one tropical rain forest tree than there are in the entire state of Vermont.
- Many insects can carry 50 times their own body weight. This would be like an adult person lifting two heavy cars full of people.
- There are over a million described species of insects. Some people estimate there are actually between 15 and 30 million species.
- 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 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. - A butterfly has a small body, made of three parts – the head, thorax and abdomen. Butterflies have two large eyes, which are made of many, many small parts. These are called ‘compound eyes.
- Butterflies have three pairs of legs. Their feet have little claws to help them stand on
flowers. Some butterflies, like the peacock, only use four of their legs, carrying the two front legs against their bodies. - Butterflies can only feed or fly when their bodies are warmed to at least 30° C, and they have to gain this from the sunshine using their wings. Butterflies are often seen basking with their wings open wide, as they gain heat.
- During fall migration migrating Monarchs have been seen flying by tall buildings such as the Empire State Building hundreds of meters high. Butterflies are picked up by storm fronts and moved 100’s of km, probably at altitudes of thousands of meters.
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