Here are 6 butterfly facts that I hope will teach you something new about these winged beauties.  Butterflies are such neat animals that can be found throughout the world.

I first really started learning about butterflies when my daughter was around 5 years old.  Every time that we went for a hike she was enchanted by them.  Slowly over time we learned to identify the common butterflies of the Rocky Mountains and learned about them.  Here are some fun butterfly facts for you to feed the curiosity of you and your little nature addicts.

6 Butterfly Facts

Butterflies may be super tiny, but they are among the longest distance migrators in the world.  Some Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles.  They live in Canada and the Rocky Mountains during the summer.  In the winter they migrate south towards Mexico.  This total migration takes them about 3,000 miles!  That is no small feat for any animal, let alone a little insect.

Butterflies, like all insects, undergo metamorphosis during their life.  This means that they being life in one form and change to another form as an adult.  Butterflies undergo complete metamorphosis, changing from a caterpillar as a larvae into a butterfly as an adult.  Their lifecycle is very similar to a moth, but there are slight differences.

There are about 20,000 species of butterflies in the world (there are more than 100,000 species of moths!).  They live in many different habitats and continents all over the world.  Actually, they live on all of the continents of the world except Antarctica.  Some of the common butterflies in the rockies include Monarchs, Painted Lady’s, Swallowtails, and Cabbage Whites.

Butterflies don’t eat food, rather they drink using a long proboscis.  The proboscis is kind of  like a super long straw/tongue.  They keep the proboscis curled up when they’re not using it.

Butterflies taste with their feet.  They have special receptors on their feet that are similar to the taste buds on the tongues of people.  As we said earlier, adult butterflies don’t eat.  When they taste the leaf they are determining if it is a good food source for their caterpillars to eat once they are born.  If it is, then they will lay their eggs on the leaf.

I keep comparing butterflies and moths because they are closely related.  They both belong to the order Lepidoptera, but are in different families.  One difference that I haven’t mentioned yet is that only moths make cocoons.  A cocoon is a protective cover that a moth makes, inside of which it pupates into an adult.  Butterflies make a chrysalis, which is usually attached to a leaf or twig and hangs up side down.  They pupate inside the chrysalis, changing into an adult butterfly.