Butterflies are gaily colored insects we often see on summer days.  They flutter from flower to flower drinking the sweet liquid called nectar.

Butterflies have no chewing mouth parts.  They cannot bite or chew.

Instead of the usual insect mouth, the butterfly has a long, slender tube which is used to suck up nectar and other liquids the way you sip through a soda straw.

Butterfly

When the butterfly is not eating, the long tube curls up like a watch spring under the insect’s head.

A butterfly’s taste buds are on the soles of its feet.  When it alights on a flower, the sweet taste causes the insect to uncoil its sucking tube.

When butterflies go from one flower to another for the sweet nectar, they also pick up some pollen on the hairs of their legs and bodies.

A little of this pollen brushes off as they visit each new flower.  It helps the flowers’ seeds and fruit to grow. – Dick Rogers