You can help butterflies resist the pressures that threaten them by planting a "butterfly friendly" garden, providing the types of nectar plants that butterflies feed on and the necessary host plants needed by butterfly larva or caterpillars. Butterflies are an important part of our ecosystem and your efforts to provide a safe haven for them will be rewarded with the beauty of their presence in your yard and knowing you've done your part to help the environment by helping the butterflies. Read about butterflies to learn more about butterfly habitats and become a better educated partner in the effort to keep these amazing "flying flowers" with us.
  • There are about 24,000 species of butterflies.
  • Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.
  • Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches.
  • A butterfly has compound eyes: each eye is made up of about 6,000 tiny parts called lenses, which let in light.
  • The Queen Alexandra's Birdwing from New Guinea is the largest butterfly; it can have a wingspan of 11 inches!
  • Most butterflies make no sound, but some in Florida and Texas make a loud clicking sound with their wings.
  • Butterflies do not get bigger as they age - a young butterfly is a caterpillar!
  • Butterflies are related to crabs and lobsters! Why? Because like those sea creatures, butterflies have skeletons on the outside of their bodies.
  • Butterflies weigh only as much as two rose petals, but can fly thousands of miles.
  • Butterflies can’t hear, but they can feel vibrations.
  • Caterpillars are not worms. Caterpillars have legs, worms do not.
  • Butterflies taste food with their feet.
  • Butterflies do not have a mouth to chew their food, they have a straw like structure called a proboscis which they use to drink the nectar and juices.
  • Butterflies belong to the order Lepidoptera. In Greek, this means scale wing.
  • Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera have been found.
  • The fastest butterflies can fly up to 12 miles per hour.
  • The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepterix rhamni) has the longest lifespan of all the adult butterflies: 9-10 months.
  • Many butterflies migrate over long distances. Particularly famous migrations are those of the Monarch butterfly from Mexico to North America, a distance of roughly 2500-3000 miles.
  • A butterfly's hind wings are thought to allow the butterfly to take swift, tight turns to evade predators.
  • In Chinese culture two butterflies flying together are a symbol of love.
  • Butterflies sense the air for scents, wind and nectar using their antennae.
  • The coloration of butterfly wings are created by minute scales. These scales are pigmented with melanins that give them blacks and browns, but blues, greens, reds and iridescence are usually created by the microstructure of the scales