Can you taste with your feet? You probably wouldn’t want to! But this is one of the ways butterflies tell what plants to lay their eggs on. They have taste sensors on their feet, and by standing on a leaf, they can taste it to see if their caterpillars can eat it.
Most adult butterflies can’t bite or chew. They eat mainly liquids like nectar, sap, juices from fruits, and sometimes even fluids from carcasses. Butterflies are found in every habitat from tropical forests to open grasslands to Arctic tundra and on every continent except Antarctica.
One of the most incredible things about butterflies is the way they change from crawling caterpillars into winged beauties. This process is called metamorphosis. When a caterpillar seals itself into a chrysalis, chemicals are released from its body that change and rearrange all the cells to create the butterfly’s new shape, including its wings.
An adult female lays her eggs on the right plants for the caterpillars to eat when they hatch from the eggs. Some butterflies lay their eggs on only one type of plant!
