Tickled by a Butterfly
Some
butterflies feed on flowers, but this butterfly was feeding
on me!
I was walking with my family on a trail in Shenandoah National
Park in Virginia. The trail wound through woods, up and
down hills. It was a hot day. We wore shorts and T-shirts,
even though the mosquitoes were hungry. We had been on the
trail for two hours, and we were tired. My two daughters,
Lisa and Michelle, stumbled along in front of me.
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| A
butterfly keeps its proboscis curled up when it's
not using it. |
Suddenly, I saw a question-mark butterfly (named for the small white marks on its wings). It flew from the trail’s edge directly onto my hand. I was startled. I lifted my hand to take a closer look.
Every butterfly has a tube-shaped organ called a proboscis (pro-BOSS-iss). It works like a soda straw and, in most butterflies, is used to suck sugary nectar from the inside of flowers.
This butterfly’s proboscis was touching my wrist. I called to my family, and they ran back to me. “Why is that butterfly sucking sweat on your hand, Dad?” Lisa asked. “Sweat does not contain sugar, does it?”
No, sweat does not contain sugar. Part of the answer to Lisa’s question is that question-mark butterflies do not usually visit flowers as other butterflies do. Instead, they suck juices of rotting fruits and dead animals. They’ll also eat sticky sap on tree trunks. Flowers are used only when they cannot find these foods.
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Most
butterflies eat nectar from flowers. |
I have never thought of myself as looking like rotting fruit or a dead squirrel. But the sweat on my hand may have some of the same things in it as the question mark’s natural foods. Sweat has water and some salts that butterflies like. Touch the tip of your tongue to your sweaty wrist. You can taste the salt.
Most butterflies, including the question mark, usually get salt from the ground. You may see butterflies sucking salt at the edges of drying mud puddles. Scientists call this puddling. I have seen more than one hundred butterflies around a small puddle at one time.
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These
butterflies are puddling, or sucking salt
from a drying mud puddle. |
I guess the question-mark butterfly at Shenandoah Park had learned to get a tasty treat from people on the trail. It may have learned this by landing on a hiker like me and tasting his sweaty skin. Or maybe a person’s skin has a special smell that attracts these butterflies.
When we were leaving the park, I wondered about that butterfly. How many people had it visited along that beautiful wooded trail?
