Do Butterflies Drink Blood? Tears? Sweat?
There are a lot of fun facts about butterflies. They are amazing creatures with beautiful colors, intricate patterns, and fascinating lifecycles. In this article we’ll look at some interesting facts about butterflies.
I’m going to share with you many fun butterfly facts that will make you laugh and learn something new.
1. Do Butterflies Drink Blood?
Butterflies will drink blood if they see it. They will fly into blood puddles or drops and sip on it. Blood has minerals that will nourish the butterflies. But don’t worry about them biting and breaking your skin, because they don’t have the capability to pierce the skin like mosquitoes.
They can’t bite you, but they’ll drink your human blood if you offer it. They will also drink and eat other things besides blood if they see it or it’s offered to them.
2. Do Monarch Butterflies Drink Blood?
Monarch butterflies drink blood if it’s available. If you find a dead animal or pool of blood, you might be able to catch a few monarchs drinking its blood. A monarch butterfly prefers drinking the nectar from flowering plants, but it will also need minerals from blood, sweat, and tears.
3. Do Butterflies Drink Tears?
Butterflies will drink tears if they see them because tears contain sodium, which is not part of the butterfly’s normal diet. Drinking turtle tears are popular with butterflies if they can find the tears.
Some types of butterflies will look for poop to use as their source for sodium, but most of them will drink tears instead. Sodium is believed to help the beautiful butterfly have reproductive success.
4. Do Butterflies Drink Sweat?
Butterflies love to drink sweat. If you’re sweating, then they will come to you and drink your sweat. But they don’t drink it out of thirst. Instead, they drink it because it contains salts and sugars that they need.
5. Do Butterflies Drink Urine?
Butterflies drink urine too if they see it. Some species of butterflies will even drink human urine. Urine contains many nutrients that butterflies require. If there are puddles of urine in your yard or elsewhere, you just might find a butterfly.
6. Zebra Longwings Eat Pollen
There aren’t many butterflies that feed on pollen, but the Zebra Longwing Butterfly (Heliconius charithonia) is one of them. All butterflies will sip nectar, but only a select few will also eat pollen. The pollen will help the zebra longwing live longer than other butterflies.
The butterfly will move its proboscis into the flower to get the pollen. Then its saliva will immediately digest the pollen and amino acids, the building blocks of protein. The interesting thing is that the pollen digested turns poisonous, into a type of cyanide in the butterfly.
7. Some Butterfly Colors are Optical Illusions
Butterfly colors come from pigments or how light hits the arrangement of the butterfly’s scales. Butterfly wings are covered with scales, which give butterflies their name. The order’s scientific name, Lepidoptera, means scale-covered insect. Pteron means wing. Some butterfly species have colorful wings.
8. The Brimstone Butterfly Lives for About a Year
Brimstone butterflies are the longest living butterfly species. These beautiful butterflies can live up to 13 months. Their wings look like leaves, so they can hang out on trees without being seen. They spend 7 months of their lives hibernating too, so that makes up a good portion of the 13 months.
9. Some Butterflies Have Long Migrations
Monarchs migrate over thousands of miles every year. They fly northward during the summer months and return south in the fall. Their flight patterns are guided by the position of the sun. They can also navigate using polarized light. Since they are fragile creatures, they must migrate quickly or perish.
A single migration can take many years to complete. Since butterflies can’t live many years, it’s often 4-5 generations of butterflies before a full migration is completed.
Monarchs are cold-blooded butterflies that migrate south to warmer climates every year. They can’t fly very far without losing heat. Their bodies need to be at least 85 degrees Fahrenheit before they can fly. At lower temperatures, they can’t even fly.
10. Butterfly vs Moth
Moths are insects that look similar to butterflies but aren’t really related. Butterflies are smaller and have longer wings. Moth antennae are hairy or threadlike and lack knobs. Butterflies fly during the day, while moths fly at night. Some butterflies are fuzzy and fat, while others are sleek and thin.
11. Butterflies Are Younger than Moths
Butterflies appeared about 100 million years ago, and moths appeared about 200 million years ago. There are over 20,000 different kinds of butterflies and over 25,000 different kinds of moths.
12. Taste Receptors in the Feet
Butterflies use taste receptors in their feet to detect sweet tastes. When they land on flowers, they feel the sweetness and stick around. This helps them find nectar-rich plants. It’s important because when they eat, they absorb nutrients. If they don’t feed, they die.
13. Some Butterflies Make Sounds
Crackers are pretty butterflies that make cracking sounds. Males have round, dark wings spotted with blue, and they make a cracking sound when they’re protecting their homes or trying to attract mates. Females and Queens are bigger than males. They have a white band across their forewings as well as metallic blue spots.
The majority of the other butterfly species will fly and eat silently. Cracker butterlies happen to be one of the types that do make noises.
14. Most Lycaenidae Caterpillars Are Raised By Ants
Lycaenidae butterflies are the second-largest family of butterflies after Nymphalidae. The most interesting thing about Lycaenid caterpillars are that they’re raised by ants. The ants protect the larvae from predators and provide food for them until they pupate.
Lycaenidae caterpillars can mimic a queen ant’s noise and release pheromones like those of ant larvae. This makes grown ants think that the caterpillars are little ants that need protecting.
The caterpillars are raised by ants who carry them back to the ants’ nests. Ants will feed the caterpillars too. The ants protect the caterpillars from predators and parasites as if they’re the Queen ant. The caterpillars release pheromones that attract ants. The ants also help the caterpillars grow faster than other insects.
15. Butterflies Don’t Defecate
Butterflies drink nectar, but they don’t defecate. Most butterflies use every bit of what they eat and drink for energy. They may expel some extra liquid as water if they’ve had too much to eat. They won’t expel solid waste as most of what they eat is liquid.
16. Butterflies are Slow
Most butterflies fly slowly, only flying as fast as 12 miles per hour. They fly slowly because of their figure-eight shaped butterfly wings, which lead to erratic flying patterns. But there are also fast butterflies.
Skipper butterflies are fast, flying up to 37 miles an hour . Their long tails act like sails, helping them move through the air. Skippers are very aggressive and territorial. They chase away other butterflies, including other skipper species.
17. Some Butterflies Have Transparent Wings
Butterflies without scales on their wings are called transparent butterflies. Their wings are mostly transparent, except for some parts that are colored.
The Big Greasy Butterfly is found in tropical regions in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Males have transparent forewings and opaque hindwings. Females have gray scales on their wings.
Black-veined whites are the most common butterfly in the world. Their wings are transparent, allowing them to see predators coming before they’re attacked. Small Thyridias are also found in the Americas. Esmeraldas are native to South America.
Fun Butterfly Facts Final Thoughts
Butterflies are beautiful creatures. There are many different kinds of butterflies, and each kind has its own personality.
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