Butterfly Facts for Kids

You read that right-butterflies taste with their feet! They have special sensors on their feet, called tarsi, that pick up chemicals from the surface they land on.

This is super important for finding the right host plant to lay their eggs on, making sure their caterpillars have the best food.

While they have a few taste buds on their proboscis-their straw-like mouth-most of their tasting power is in their 'toes'!

Millions of North American Monarch butterflies fly up to 3,000 miles south to overwinter in central Mexico!

The amazing part: the butterflies that make the southbound trip are a special generation that lives eight times longer than their parents and grandparents, up to several months!

It takes two to three or even four generations to complete the entire round-trip journey north again in the spring. They pass the baton, not the whole race!

Most butterflies cruise around at a leisurely 5 to 12 mph, which is slower than a person running!

But Skipper butterflies are natural sprinters, reaching speeds up to 37 miles per hour (or 59 kilometers per hour)!

That speed means they could keep pace with a horse in a race-though maybe not for long! Fast reflexes help them dodge predators.

The order name for butterflies and moths, Lepidoptera, literally means 'scale wing'!

The patterns and colors you see are made of thousands of overlapping, delicate scales, stacked like shingles on a roof.

Some bright colors, like blues and greens, aren't even from pigment; they're created because the scales bend or refract the light!

We see red, green, and blue, but many butterflies can see ultraviolet (UV) light too-the same light that gives you a sunburn!

This UV vision means flowers have secret, bright landing strips or target bullseyes that are totally invisible to us.

It also helps them spot the best mates, as some butterflies have UV patterns on their wings that only other butterflies can see!

There are roughly 18,000 described species of butterflies alive right now!

That’s more than the number of different primary schools in the entire United States!

The vast majority, about 90%, of these diverse species live in the warm, wet tropical areas near the equator.

Butterflies don't have a tongue that opens and closes; they have a proboscis, which is two tubes zipped together!

When they turn into a butterfly inside the chrysalis, this feeding tube is 'unzipped' and fused together to form a hollow straw.

When resting, the proboscis coils up tightly, like a tiny, ready-to-go spring tucked under their chin.

The biggest butterfly is the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, found in New Guinea, with a female wingspan stretching up to 12.5 inches (32 centimeters)!

That's about as wide as a standard ruler or three small smartphones laid end-to-end!

The smallest, the Western Pygmy Blue, has a wingspan of only 0.62 inches (1.5 cm)-smaller than a pinky fingernail!

Butterflies are insects, which means they always have six legs!

Each leg has 5 sections, and the 'foot' part has those crucial taste sensors we talked about.

They also have a thorax, which is their chest area, and this is where all four wings and all six legs are attached.

Because they are cold-blooded (ectothermic), butterflies need the sun to warm up their flight muscles so they can move!

If the temperature drops below 55° F (13° C), their bodies simply won't work correctly, which is why they can't live in Antarctica.

To fly on a cool morning, they often 'shiver' their wings rapidly to warm up their muscles first!