butterflies?!!!?

Question

what are the behaviour of butterflies????

Answer 1

Hello.

I would like to recommend an excellent book, entitled:

"Attracting Butterflies & Hummingbirds to your Backyard" by Sally Roth. This is a Rodale Organic Gardening book.

I got it at Barnes & Noble. It is excellent.

I sincerely hope this helps you.

PAMELA J.

Answer 2

Butterflies like to flutter by.

Answer 3

Butterflies can communicate with each other by color, chemicals, sound, and physical actions. Color patterns are used to signal their sex or species to each other. Chemical pheromones are used by both sexes of some butterflies to attract the opposite sex or to signal species identity in courtship. A few butterflies make clicking sounds [males of genus Hamadryas] to protect their space. Some chrysalides [gossamer wings family] make clicking sounds to attract ants that in turn protect them. Physical actions such as aggressive flight or postures are used in courtship or to protect resources such as an important flower. Caterpillars of some species produce sugary substances for ants which in turn protect the caterpillars.

Male butterflies find females by sight, and use chemicals called pheromones at close range. If the female accepts the male, they couple end to end and may go on a short courtship flight. They may remain coupled for an hour or more, sometimes overnight. The male passes a sperm packet called a spermatorphore to the female. The sperm then fertilize each egg as it passes down the female's egg-laying tube.

Almost all caterpillars eat plant parts, but a few are carnivorous. Caterpillars of the carnivorous Harvester butterfly of the eastern U.S. eat wooly aphids. The adult female butterfly lays her eggs in the middle of aphid masses.

Most adults sip flower nectar, but can get fluids from sap flowers on trees, rotting fruits, bird droppings, or animal dung. Many adult butterflies are found drinking fluids at wet sand or mud, especially along stream courses or the edges of dirt roads or trails. Some exceptions are the adults of longwing butterflies such as the Zebra are able to collect pollen from certain flowers with their proboscis and to break it down and absorb amino acids (proteins) which contribute to the ability to survive, mate and lay eggs for long periods (6 months or so). With their short proboscis (tongue) the adults of Harvester butterflies can actually pierce the bodies of woolly aphids and drink their fluids--this would be the only bugs that adult butterflies eat. The caterpillar of almost all butterflies and moths eat various parts of plants. Each species may specialize of only a few kinds of plants or plant parts.

When butterflies cannot keep their temperatures at activity levels, when its cloudy, or at night they become quiescent. This quiescence, or resting, is not equivalent to human sleep. Butterflies always have their eyes open, since they do not have eyelids.

If rains are exceptionally hard or of long duration butterflies can become tattered or die, so they go under large leaves, crawl down into dense leaves or under rocks, & some just sit head down on grass stems or bushes with wings held tightly.
http://bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly/faq/behavior

Hesperidae caterpillars (one of the four families of butterflies) weave "houses". Different species of these types of caterpillars weave houses which look different from one another.

Caterpillars are very easily infected with molds and fungi infections, which can easily kill them.
http://www.laep.org/uclasp/ISSUES/butterflies/findbfs.html

Butterflies can get drunk from the juice of rotten fruit which sometimes contains alcohol. Sipping this juice the animals can even get too drunk to fly.

The caterpillars of some Snout Moths (Pyralididae) live in or on water-plants, & developed two different ways to breathe!!! They spin parts of plants together in order to get a hollow space filled with air. The others developed a kind of gills to breathe. The species of Elophila spin nets to catch pieces of food and air-bubbles. The adult butterfly of one of these species (Acentropus niveus) hatches underwater. It is covered with a wax layer as a protection against the water.

Carnivorous plants can’t do any harm to the caterpillars of an American butterfly. The caterpillar has detachable scales with which it can pave its way over the sticky surface of the plant.
http://library.thinkquest.org/27968/amazing_behavior.shtml

Answer 4

they are very interesting creatures... read all about them here

http://living.oneindia.in/home-n-garden/beautiful-gardens/butterfly-gardening-tips.html