They eat voraciously to transform plant material into tissues that they will need for metamorphosis. Plant associations. Butterflies are commonly associated with plants, and the relationship is sometimes complex.
Immatures, with few exceptions, eat plants, and therefore may be considered harmful to the plants. However, butterflies are very important to many plants that are dependent upon flower-visiting insects for cross-pollination. Most butterfly caterpillars eat one, or sometimes several, related species of plants. Usually the choice is made by the adult female when depositing eggs.
Adults usually feed on nectar from flowers of plants, although many butterflies feed instead on rotting fruit, dung, etc. Butterfly migration is best exemplified by the Monarch, which is widely known to migrate in the fall to overwintering sites in California and Mexico. But in the United States, several other butterfly species engage in lesser migration distances. Wing colors in butterflies appear in two types, pigment and structural, frequently combined in one individual.
Pigment colors are familiar in paints, dyes, and inks, and are defined as specific substances with definite chemical composition. Structural colors are instead produced in a physical manner, similar to a rainbow. Morpho butterflies are the usual example of butterflies with structural color.
The vision of butterflies appears to be excellent, especially within short distances. They are able to fly with precision in areas of many obstacles. Mating Behavior.
Females are usually able to engage in mating on the day of emergence, but males do not normally mate for several days. Courtship rituals vary widely among species. Butterflies are currently, with some arguments, placed into the following six families:. Known as "Skippers," containing relatively small, fast-flying species.
About 3, worldwide species. Blues, Hairstreaks and Coppers. Colors and patterns of sexes often differ. Over 5, world species. Known as "Brush-footed" butterflies, contains many subfamilies. There are some 5, worldwide species. The only field guide to cover all North American butterfly species, this monumental work is also a complete natural history, fully describing the biological and ecological world of butterflies in general.
It is without question the most important book on butterflies in several decades, and the most complete treatment of a major butterfly faun ever published. The book is written at several levels of detail, most of it accessible to anyone, and employs the minimum of technical terms necessary for ensuring scientific accuracy. Extensive introductory material—a book in itself—stresses butterfly biology and ecology: structure, flight, metamorphosis, hibernation, physiology, roosting, migration, mating, egg laying, intelligence, social behavior, larval and adult foods, enemies, mimicry, variation, evolution, habitats, distribution, and conservation.
The main text is arranged in phylogenetic sequence, and characteristics or behavior common to all members of a family, subfamily, or tribe are discussed at those levels.
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