What are butterflies and moths?

Butterflies and moths are a group of insects called Lepidoptera. Like all insects, butterflies and moths have a head, thorax, abdomen, two antennae, and six legs. Additionally, moths and butterflies have four wings that are almost always covered by colored scales, and a coiled proboscis for drinking liquids such as flower nectar. Lepidoptera is derived from the Latin "lepido"= scale + "ptera" = wing. Of course there are exceptions; some moths have wingless adults and some primitive moths lack a proboscis.

How many kinds of butterflies and moths exist?

Butterflies and moths are found on all continents except Antarctica, and scientists estimate that there are approximately 12-15,000 species of butterflies and 150-250,000 species of moths. There are still thousands of moth and butterfly species that have not been found or described by scientists. In the United States and Canada, more than 750 species of butterflies and 11,000 species of moths have been recorded. Many species of moths and a few kinds of butterflies are still being discovered. There is much to be learned! To learn about the diversity of butterfly and moth species in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, browse the taxonomic groups at the Butterflies and Moths of North America site. For cutting-edge research on butterfly and moth taxonomy, visit the All Leps Barcode of Life project.

What is the difference between butterflies and moths?

Butterflies are mostly brightly colored day-flying insects with long clubbed antennae and most moths fly at night and lack clubs at the end of their antennae. A group of tropical "moths" has been found that are closely related to butterflies but they lack clubs on their antennae; they are now considered to be butterflies. Perhaps the best answer that matches our current knowledge is just to say that butterflies are "fancy moths."

Are butterflies poisonous?

Some butterflies such as the Monarch and Pipevine Swallowtail eat poisonous plants as caterpillars and are poisonous themselves as adult butterflies. Birds learn not to eat them. Other good-tasting butterflies (called "mimics") come to resemble them and thus benefit from this "umbrella" of protection.

Which butterflies are poisonous?

No butterflies are so poisonous that they kill people or large animals, but there is an African moth whose caterpillar's fluids are very poisonous. The N'gwa or 'Kaa caterpillar's entrails have been used by Bushmen to poison the tips of arrows. When shot by one of these arrows an antelope can be killed

in short order. Other butterflies whose caterpillars eat poisonous plants such as milkweeds, pipevines, and passion vines, are distasteful and can cause birds who eat them to vomit or spit them out--never to try another.

Why are butterflies and moths such good insects?

Butterflies are obvious bright-colored objects in our environment. They are believed to be free spirits in their flight and lack on constraints. They are also thought of as harmless, innocent creatures, so lots of people enjoy looking at them. Some butterflies and moths are also "good" because they play an important role as pollinators.

How did butterflies get their English name?

No one knows for sure, since the word has been in the English language for centuries (the word was "buterfleoge" in Old English, which means butterfly in our English today). Because it is such an old word, we don't really know who or when someone said "That 'thing' over there is a 'butterfly'." One story is that they were named so because it was thought that butterflies, or witches that took on the shape of butterflies, stole milk and butter. (Someone else wondered if the word was really meant to be "flutter-by" ). In other languages, the word for our fluttery friends has no such derivation as "butter" + "fly". One can only speculate on why the English language uses such an unlikely name.

How do I identify a caterpillar?

The only readily available books are the Peterson First Guide to Caterpillars by Amy Wright published by Houghton Mifflin, and the Golden guide to Butterflies and Moths by Robert T. Mitchell. There are a few good resources available on the Internet, but there are thousands of kinds of moths and over 700 kinds of butterflies in North America and only a small portion of the caterpillars are illustrated in these sources. There are some photos of caterpillars on the Butterflies and Moths of North America web site. For step-by-step identification assistance, try the Caterpillar Guide of the IDnature guides series. For resources with a regional focus, try Caterpillars of Pacific Northwest Forests and Woodlands or Caterpillars of Eastern Forests. Both of these illustrate common moth and butterfly larvae of the respective regions, with emphasis on those that are economically important. The northwestern guide contains a key that enables the user to identify a specimen based on morphological characteristics. Its use requires the reader to learn some scientific terminology and examine the specimen quite closely, often with a magnifying glass. The eastern guide is organized by family, and the reader will have to search it photo by photo; to make it easier to read, a photo thumbnails feature has been added to this resource.

How much do butterflies weigh?

I have some information on butterfly weights but not exact weights for the largest and smallest butterflies. However, I can make pretty good guesses. I have weights ranging from 0.3 gram for a large swallowtail to 0.04 gram for a small butterfly called the elf. My guess is that the female Queen Victoria Birdwing, the world's largest butterfly, would weigh 2 or 3 grams and one of the World's smallest butterflies, the Pygmy Blue, would weigh only a few thousandths of a gram.

How long do butterflies live?

Different butterfly species have different adult potential life spans. By marking butterflies then recapturing or sighting them later scientists gain information on how long butterflies can live. An average butterfly species has an adult life span of 2 weeks or less. For example one butterfly studied in Costa Rica had a life expectancy of about 2 days, and live 10 days at the most. No adult butterfly can live more than a year. The Mourning Cloak adult and some related tortoiseshells and anglewings that hatch in early summer may live almost a year. It over winters as an adult and then waits to court, mate and lay eggs the following spring or early summer. Monarchs and Swallowtails may live about a month in the summer, but the Monarchs that migrate to Mexico or the California coast may live up to 6 months. Some long-lived tropical butterflies live up to 6 months as adults. The long-life champion is a tiny yucca moth that feeds on Banana Yucca (Yucca baccata). Dr. Jerry Powell of the

University of California at Berkeley has found this moth's caterpillar may be able to wait up until 30 years to form a pupa and emerge as an adult.

Do butterflies have brains and hearts?

Yes, butterflies and all other insects have both a brain and a heart. The center of a butterfly's nervous system is the subesophageal ganglion and is located in the insect's thorax, not its head. The butterfly has a long chambered heart that runs the length of its body on the upper side. It pumps hemolymph (it lacks the red color of blood) from the rear of the insect forward to bathe its internal organs. It has other functions similar to our blood.

Are butterflies and moths pollinators?

Most butterflies are not good pollinators of flowers. Pollen does not regularly stick to their legs or tongue (proboscis) and the butterflies do not make proper contact with the flower's stigma. There are probably some notable exceptions to this such as the pollinia (a coherent mass of pollen grains often with a stalk bearing an adhesive disk that clings to insects) of the milkweed flowers sticking to the tongue and legs of Monarch butterflies. Some moth species, however, are exceptional pollinators. Especially well known are the "hummingbird moths" of the Family Sphingidae

How does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly?

This is not easy to explain. You can say that inside the chrysalis the caterpillar changes clothes and turns into a butterfly. (An esoteric explanation: Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar structures are broken down chemically and the adult's new structures are formed).

Why do caterpillars turn into butterflies?

Caterpillars are the eating and growing stage for the butterfly, but they cannot mate and reproduce. The adult butterfly is both the mating and egg-laying stage of the beautiful insect. Also adult butterflies can disperse by flight, sometimes long distances, to either colonize new areas with fresh plants for the caterpillars or even migrate long distances to escape our freezing winters, such as Monarchs flying to Mexico or coastal California for the winter.

Do caterpillars breathe in their chrysalis?

The chrysalis has spiracles or breathing tubes just like the caterpillars and adults. So, there is air exchange between the developing butterfly and the air outside the chrysalis.

Why are butterfly and moth wings so delicate? How are they made?
Butterfly and moth wings are made of thin layers of chitin--the same hardened protein that makes up their outside body--and are covered with thousands of tiny scales that lend color to the wings. The wings are strengthened by a system of veins. The wings have to be strong enough to support the body in the air, but still flexible enough for flight movements.

Why do some wings have such brilliant colors? Why are some so dull?
The colors of butterfly and moth wings may serve several purposes. Colors are often used in courtship, so that male and female butterflies recognize each other as the correct species. Bright colors may also serve to warn birds or other predators that a particular butterfly, such as a Monarch or a Pipevine Swallowtail, is bad-tasting. Other butterflies and moths, although perfectly edible, may have colors that "mimic" the bad-tasting species and thereby gain protection for themselves. Finally, certain color patterns may help the butterfly or moth blend into its background and be protected from birds or other would-be predators by background resemblance. These protective colors can be bright (like the Imperial Moth, below) and other species are dull in color (like the Goatweed Leafwing, below).

For information on how the wing colors are developed, see the question about "dust."

Why do butterflies have dust on their wings?

The dust on butterfly and moth wings are modified hairs called scales. The scales have at least 4 functions, not necessarily on the same butterfly species: (1) They form patterns of bright colors, sometimes with hidden ultraviolet pattern, that are used as signals to the other sex in attraction for mating. (2) The bright colors are used to advertise particular butterfly's bad tastes to predators. This protects them from being eaten. (3) The scales may form patterns that help the butterflies blend into their background and thus escape being eaten by birds or other animals by background resemblance. (4) Dark colors formed by the scales can be used by butterflies to soak up warmth from the sun that allows their bodies to warm up to flight temperatures in cool seasons or cool environments. Remember: butterflies are cold-blooded.

How many legs does a caterpillar have?

The number of legs that caterpillars can have varies with the kind of caterpillar and sometimes with its stage. Usually all of the butterflies or moths in the same family will have the same number of legs on their caterpillars, but this is not always the case. The caterpillars of some tiny leaf-mining moths may have no legs at all. Most caterpillars of the larger moths and butterflies have 3 pairs of true legs, and most have 5 pairs of prolegs on their abdomen. So the best answer would be that most often they have 16 legs. This photograph clearly shows the 5 pairs of prolegs (to the left) and 3 pairs of true legs (to the right) on the Black Swallowtail caterpillar:

Why do some caterpillars have such funny colors?

Caterpillars are often camouflaged in such a way that they match their background, or they may look like something other than a caterpillar.

Do butterflies eat bugs?

No. Butterflies and moths do most of their eating when they are in the caterpillar stage. Almost all caterpillars eat plant parts, but a few are carnivorous. Caterpillars of the carnivorous Harvester butterfly of the eastern U.S. eat wooly aphids. The adult female butterfly lays her eggs in the middle of aphid masses.

What do butterflies and moths eat?

With few exceptions, adult butterflies and moths eat only various liquids to maintain their water balance and energy stores. Most adults sip flower nectar, but other imbibe fluids from sap flowers on trees, rotting fruits, bird droppings, or animal dung. Many adult butterflies are found drinking fluids at wet sand or mud, especially along stream courses or the edges of dirt roads or trails. Some exceptions are the adults of 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 (proteins) which contribute to the ability to survive, mate and lay eggs for long periods (6 months or so). With their short proboscis (tongue) the adults of Harvester butterflies can actually pierce the bodies of woolly aphids and drink their fluids, the only bugs that adult butterflies eat. The caterpillar of almost all butterflies and moths eat 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 exceptions in that they feed solely on aphids. Members of the family Sphingidae are medium to large moths, with heavy bodies; wingspread reaches 5 inches or more in some species. Although a few are active in the daytime, most species in the group are active at dusk. Most, but not all, sphingids feed much like hummingbirds, hovering in front of a

flower and sipping nectar through the extended proboscis. The proboscis rolls up like a party noisemaker when not in use, and may not be readily evident in a resting moth. Some species lack scales on large portions of their wings, and therefore have transparent or clear wings. These are commonly referred to as "clearwing hummingbird moths." (Note however that the scientifically accepted common name of "Hummingbird clearwing" refers specifically to Hemaris thysbe, at right.)

How do butterflies communicate? Is it like honeybees?

Butterflies do not communicate like honeybees but they use some of the same kinds of communication. Butterflies can communicate with each other [same or different species] by color, chemicals, sound, and physical actions. Color patterns are used to signal their sex or species to each other. Chemical pheromones are used by both sexes of some butterflies to attract the opposite sex or to signal species identity in courtship. A few butterflies make clicking sounds [males of genus Hamadryas] to protect their space. Some chrysalides [Gossamer-wing butterflies] make clicking sounds to attract ants that in turn protect them. Physical actions such as aggressive flight or postures are used in courtship or to protect resources such as an important flower. Caterpillars of some species produce sugary substances for ants which in turn protect the caterpillars.

How do butterflies fly?

Butterflies have strong muscles in their thorax which force their wings up and down on a fulcrum basis. They actually go in a slanted figure 8 motion that propels them forward through the air in the same principle as an airplane.

Facts about Butterflies:

Butterflies are insects. A butterflys 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). Fully grown caterpillars attach themselves to a suitable twig or leaf before shedding their outside layer of skin to reveal a hard skin underneath known as a chrysalis. An adult butterfly will eventually emerge from the chrysalis where it will wait a few hours for its wings to fill with blood and dry, before flying for the first time. Butterflies can live in the adult stage from anywhere between a week and a year, depending on the species. Butterflies have four wings. Butterflies often have brightly coloured wings with unique patterns made up of tiny scales. Most butterflies feed on nectar from flowers. Butterflies taste receptors are on their feet. Scientists estimate that there are between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly. Birdwing butterflies have large, angular wings and fly in a similar way to birds. Monarch butterflies are known for their long migration. Every year monarch butterflies will travel a great distance (sometimes over 4000 km), females will lay eggs and a new generation of monarchs will travel back, completing the cycle.