Butterfly Basics

• Butterflies and moths comprise an order of insects called the Lepidoptera, which means “scaly wings.” There are about 17,000 species of butterflies in the world and 700 species in North America.
• Butterflies are incredibly sensitive to environmental factors, making them indicators of habitat health, and they also serve as essential pollinators.
• A metamorphosis is a changing of form, or transformation. There are two main types of metamorphosis: incomplete and complete. Butterflies go through complete metamorphosis.
• The insect develops through four distinct body forms: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult.
• A female butterflies lay eggs, up to 1,600 during her lifetime, only on the type of plant that the particular caterpillar species will eat. This plant is called the host plant. In 7 to 20 days, a caterpillar, or larva, emerges from the egg.
• The role of the caterpillar is to eat, often eating its own eggshell, then move on to devour the host, or larval-food, plant. Because caterpillars are insects, they have an exoskeleton and have to molt to grow. Depending on the species, a caterpillar will usually complete four to six molts, or instars. The final molt of the caterpillar is an amazing process. Using its spinnerets, the caterpillar attaches itself to a plant or other object. It may hang upside down from a pad of silk or spin a thin girdle of silk that supports it in an upward position. Once attached, the caterpillar produces the chrysalis, or pupa, under its exoskeleton.
• The butterfly emerges from the pupa case a week to many months later, depending on the season and the species of butterfly. When it emerges, the wings are wrinkled and small. It hangs upside down and pumps hemolymph, or insect blood, into the veins of its wings to make them expand. The butterfly can’t fly away until all four of its wings are hardened.
• The butterfly has four wings, two antennae, and compound eyes which see all the colors we see, plus ultraviolet six legs. Its mouthpart, proboscis, is now a long, tubelike structure used to drink nectar.
• A butterfly’s average life span is two weeks, but can be as brief as two days or as long as a year.