Butterflies make the world a little more colorful. Their vivid wing coloration and fluttering flight path lend a special touch of beauty to nature. However, butterflies do more than just paint a pretty picture. They help flowers pollinate, eat plenty of weedy plants and provide a food source for other animals. In addition, their presence or absence can tell us a lot about the local environment.
Butterflies are not only beautiful creatures, but do a great deal for the environment. Like bees, they are plant pollinators, and they provide population control for a number of plant and even insect species by eating them. Tey also serve as sustenance for other species. Because they are so sensitive to changes in their ecosystems, scientist use butterfly population and behavior shifts as metrics for changes and problems in local environments.
Adult butterflies drink nectar from blossoms on flowering plants. Butterflies use a long proboscis to reach deep into the bloom to get at the nectar. The proboscis, which is part of their mouths, works like a long straw that butterflies curl into a spiral when not using. Like bees and other pollinators, butterflies pick up pollen while they sip a flower’s nectar. Once they’re off to another plant, the pollen goes with them, helping to pollinate the plant species. About one third of the food people eat depends on the work of pollinators such as butterflies.
Butterflies in the larval, or caterpillar, stage consume the leaves of host plants, such as milkweed. Caterpillars have chewing mouthpieces that allow them to eat through leaves quickly, using them as an energy source while the larvae grow. Some caterpillars eat flowers or seed pods as well. As a result, they may hep plants lose leaves prior to autumn, or help keep certain plant species from propagating out of control. Butterflies are typically very specific as to the type of plant on which they feed. For example, during it caterpillar stage, the monarch butterfly only eats milkweed plants. Milkweed is poisonous to animals, especially horses but it is toxic to dogs as well as chickens, cattle, sheep, cats and some insects. That makes it a really safe place for caterpillars to attach itself.
~Donna DeRemer-Hissrich
Spiritual Director
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