Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of food do butterflies
eat?
- Butterflies eat only various liquids to maintain their water balance
and energy stores.
- Most butterfly sip flower nectar, but other imbibes fluids from sap
flowers on trees, rotting fruits, bird droppings, or animal dung.
- Many adult butterflies are found drinking fluids from wet sand or
mud, especially along stream or edges of dirt roads or trails.
- The longwing butterflies such as the Zebra are able to collect pollen
from certain flowers with their proboscis and to break it down and absorb
amino acids which contribute to the ability to survive, mate and lay
eggs for long periods (6 months or so).
- With their short proboscis (tongue) the Harvester butterflies can
actually pierce the bodies of woolly aphids and drink their fluids--this
would be the only bug that butterflies eat.
- The caterpillar of almost all butterflies eats various parts of plants.
- Each species may specialize of only a few kinds of plants or plant
parts.
- The caterpillars of the Harvester butterfly and its relatives are
feed solely on aphids. Photo (Aphids.bmp) Aphids may be green, black,
brown, red, pink, or some other color. These pear-shaped insects are
slow moving and range in size from 1/16" to 1/8".
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