The Beautiful Insect

Imagine sucking up a drink through your tongue. You wouldn’t need a straw to drink soda pop. You would just stick your tongue in and slurp.

This is how most butterflies eat. They stick their tongues into flowers and suck up sweet juices. Butterflies have long, hollow tongues. The shortest tongues are less than an inch long. The longest tongues are several inches long.

WHY DO BUTTERFLIES HAVE COLORFUL WINGS?

Colorful wings help butterflies find each other. Often male and female butterflies have different colors or patterns on their wings. Butterflies can see colors and patterns.

Colored wings help some butterflies hide from birds and other enemies. Some butterflies have spots on their wings that look like big eyes. The “eyes” scare enemies away.

Some brightly colored butterflies, such as monarchs, taste really bad to birds that try to eat them. Birds learn not to eat these butterflies. Other butterflies have a simpler trick: They look like bad-tasting butterflies. Monarchs and viceroys are both colored orange and black. Viceroys taste good, but birds leave them alone because viceroys are the same color as monarchs.

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