Do butterflies eat fish?
Butterflies are among the most beautiful and exotic creatures on Earth, but do butterflies eat fish? Butterflies don’t have mouths.
Butterflies puddle over a dead fish, licking the animal for its salts and minerals, which seep out of the decaying flesh. The process by which butterflies puddle over a dead fish is known as necrophagy. Butterflies lick the moisture from the dead animal, which seeped out of decomposing flesh.
Have you ever seen a butterfly feast on rotting flesh? It’s a gruesome sight, but sometimes necessary said butterfly is to have offspring. In fact, many of these creatures will only lay their eggs on decaying meat, which contains certain chemicals necessary for embryonic development.
Necrophagy
Necrophagy is widespread among carnivorous insects and other animals and plants. In some species of caterpillars (for example, Lonomia spp.), mandibles may be modified to form a sucking tube into which liquid food can be sucked.
Some spiders are known to feed on dead bodies, such as the North American Pardosa milvina, which feeds on carrion. Spiders found in cemeteries have been observed to have longer fangs than those found outside cemeteries, presumably due to the larger amount of flesh available.
Invertebrates, necrophagy is most common among carnivores. Depending on local conditions, the carcasses of dead animals can provide a readily available source of food for animals that scavenge for meat, such as vultures and hyenas. The importance of necrophagy increases during times of scarcity when other sources of meat become scarcer or more difficult to obtain.
Decomposing carcasses can also provide a source of meat in environments where live prey is scarce, such as in deserts and polar regions. In environments where carrion is abundant, and populations of scavengers are high, competition may limit the ability of individual predators to consume carrion.
Do butterflies eat meat?
There are many stories of insects and animals eating their dead, but not all of them can be true. Butterflies don’t eat meat; despite what you may have heard, they only suck out the nutrition on the dead bodies. In fact, no butterfly species on Earth is carnivorous. Since they aren’t meat-eaters, they aren’t eating their own (if they were to do so in times of starvation, it would be cannibalism).
Do butterflies bite?
While butterflies are generally docile creatures, some species are a bit more aggressive than others. The Black Swallowtail butterfly, for example, has been known to bite and leave small welts on human skin—sometimes even breaking through our skin and causing minor irritation. However, they don’t typically bite with enough force to draw blood. Regardless of whether or not they bite humans often (or at all), it’s important to know that butterflies aren’t likely to cause any serious harm if you’re stung by one. Most species produce enzymes in their saliva that aid in digesting plant-based food rather than protein-based food like fish—so it’s unlikely that your butterfly is hungry enough to make a meal out of you!
Why do butterflies puddle?
Butterflies might seem as though they’re sipping at puddles on a warm summer day. But what they’re actually doing is something quite different. As aquatic insects, butterflies live in and around water sources, using them for everything from finding mates to laying eggs.
Butterflies and moths have been observed drinking from puddles and mud for centuries, but the details of how they do it weren’t clear until researchers studied the behavior more closely in the 1990s. It turns out that butterflies use their feet as more than just landing pads — these organs also help them absorb salts and other chemicals from wet surfaces.
Butterflies do not eat fish, but they do enjoy the minerals found in decaying meat. You may have been wondering why butterflies puddle over fish that are obviously not edible. However, it’s the minerals which seep out of the decaying flesh and onto the surface that butterflies crave. These minerals trickle off and form crystals on the wings of puddling butterflies, making them appear wet from a distance.
