MONARCH BUTTERFLY
Monarch butterflies, or Danaus plexippus, begin life as eggs and hatch as larvae that eat their eggshells and the milkweed plants on which they were placed. Fattening larvae become juicy, colorful caterpillars, then create a hard protective shell around themselves as they enter the pupa stage. They emerge as beautiful, black-orange-and-white adults. The colorful pattern makes monarchs easy to identify and warns predators that the insects are foul tasting and poisonous.
digestive system
Butterflies do not have teeth. Rather, they have a
long double barreled tube called a proboscis. Because they feed through
what is essentially a straw, butterfly diets are exclusively liquids.
While people generally think of butterflies as feeding from the nectar of
flowers, other common diets include fruits, mud, cow dung, water and tree sap. Butterflies are
different in their strategies to gather fluid nutrients. The male adult
butterflies use mud-puddling to collect sodium and amino acids. During
puddling, fluid is pumped through the digestive tract and released from their
anus. It is estimated that fluid of up to 600 times their body mass may pass
through.