Glasswings butterflies lay their eggs in a plant called Celestrum , commonly known as the Nightshade plant, which is highly poisonous. As the eggs grow into caterpillars, they continue to eat the Celestrum, which causes the adult butterflies, when they appear, to be highly toxic to predators. Because of this toxicity, predators come to avoid them as a food source.
Another way that Glasswings are able to protect themselves from predation, is because of their clear wings. When predators search for the butterflies, they see through the clear wings to the foliage in the background, and believe that the butterfly is gone.
An amazing fact about these Glasswings is that although they are not large, with wingspans from 2.2 - 2.4 " , they are extremely fast fliers, capable of carrying up to 40x their body weight as they fly.
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