Here are 10 unique scientific facts about butterflies!

August 25, 2022 Knowledge Articles 0 Comments

Here are 10 Unique Scientific Facts about Butterflies!

Butterflies Symbolize Beautiful Feelings of Love Butterflies have a very beautiful face with beautiful colors on the wings. The beauty of the butterfly is often a symbol of love. The butterfly philosophy, which has a beautiful shape, teaches that love does look beautiful.

Butterflies generally live by sucking flower nectar (nectar / flower juice). However, some species like the liquid sucked from fruit that falls on the ground and rots, carrion meat, bird droppings, and wet soil. but how much do you know about this insect?

Here are 10 unique scientific facts about butterflies!

1. Butterfly wings are transparent

Who says butterfly wings have colors? In fact, butterflies have transparent or colorless wings. Then how come the wings look beautiful with colorful colors? Well, this is what many people don't know, it turns out that butterfly wings are colorless or transparent, the color is produced from the color of the fine feathers that cover the wings.

2. Butterflies taste something with their feet.

It has wings that are the attraction of the beauty of this one insect. Butterflies have quite unique senses. While most insects taste with their tongues, it is different for butterflies. Butterflies taste the nectar in flowers with their feet.

3. The butterfly's diet depends on the liquid type.

Talking about the diet of butterflies, adult butterflies only eat liquids, usually nectar. Their mouthparts are modified to be able to drink, but they are unable to chew solid food.

A proboscis, which functions as a drinking straw, is coiled under the butterfly's chin until it finds a source of nectar, or other liquid nutrition. It will then stretch out the tubular structure to suck in its food.

4. A butterfly must combine its proboscis/proboscis as soon as it emerges from the Chrysalis/cocoon.

Butterflies that can't drink nectar are dead, so one of the main tasks of an adult butterfly is to make sure its mouth is functioning.

When a new adult butterfly emerges from the pupa or cocoon, its mouth is divided into 2 parts. Using the palps located near the trunk, the butterfly begins to combine the 2 parts into one mouthpart, the tubular trunk.

You will see the butterfly just emerging from the cocoon curl up and stick out its trunk to test its function.

5. Butterflies drink from mud grains.

Male butterflies usually suck mud grains several times to meet their mineral and salt needs. A butterfly can't just live on sugar. He also needs minerals to supplement his nectar diet.

6. Butterflies can't fly when they're cold.

At first glance it may sound silly, but in reality it is like that, this makes the butterfly unique. Maybe if other winged animals such as birds can still fly when cold, unlike the case with butterflies which cannot fly when they feel cold. The reason is simple, the butterfly cannot regulate the temperature in its own body, as a result this animal cannot fly.

7. Newly "hatched" butterflies cannot fly.

Actually, this is common, because it's not only butterflies that can't fly when they're born, humans can't even walk when they're born. But the reason is not that, because the butterfly when it is born has small and crumpled wings, so it cannot be used to fly.

8. Butterflies only live for 2-4 weeks.

It turns out that butterflies don't live long, you know. The average butterfly can only survive for a few weeks. During its short life, the butterfly will forage for food and find the right plants to deposit its eggs. Usually, butterflies will survive about 4 weeks.

But if you count all the stages of metamorphosis, it's about two or eight months in total. However, there are also types of butterflies that live only 24 hours and some butterflies can live a maximum of eight months.

9. Butterflies are animals at close range.

Butterflies have a viewing distance of about 3 meters. However, butterflies can see not only a number of colors that we can see, but also ultraviolet colors, colors that the human eye cannot.

Butterflies themselves are even believed to have a number of ultraviolet color markings attached to their wings to help them identify each other and find potential mates. Not only that, flowers also have ultraviolet color markings that act as signals to attract the attention of butterflies and other pollinating animals.

10. Butterflies are quite clever and have many tricks to escape being eaten by predators.

Butterflies are ranked at the bottom of the food chain, so many predators want to devour them. Therefore, the butterfly requires a number of defense mechanisms. Some butterflies fold their wings to blend in with the background in which they live, aka camouflage.Some butterfly species attempt to use the opposite strategy of displaying bright colors and patterns to scare off their predators.