Butterflies
These beautiful insects can do amazing things, with some butterflies only living for a few days, some living for a few weeks and some living for nearly a year!
Here's some fun facts about butterflies:
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Butterflies taste food with their toes and not their mouths. They have taste sensors on their feet which helps them know if they’re resting on a plant where they can lay their eggs.
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Butterflies have a long tube-like tongue which they use as a straw to sip flower nectar and sometimes minerals from mud puddles.
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They have see-through wings and hundreds of thousands of tiny overlapping scales that shimmer with brilliant colours because of reflected sunlight – like a stained glass window.
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Butterflies are cold-blooded, which means if they feel cold they can't fly and they need to sit in sunshine until their wing muscles are warmed up enough so they can take off.
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Butterflies have super powerful eyes that can see ultraviolet light which means they can see colours that humans can’t see.
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Because they don't have backbones, butterflies wear their skeleton on the outside which helps keep their tiny bodies safe like a suit of armour.
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The skipper is the fastest UK butterfly with speeds of up to 37 mph, which is as fast as a galloping horse!
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A group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.
How Your Family Can Help Butterflies
You could give butterflies a place to stop and drink some nectar by growing fragrant plants like lavender or marigolds in your garden or in a window box or plant pot.
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Butterflies love to drink from a mud puddle so you can create a mini mud bar for them using a shallow tray filled with earth and rainwater.