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Swallowtails are unusual in the butterfly world in that they hover in front of plants when nectaring, as hummingbirds do, so that the plant is not damaged, rather than landing on the plant as other butterfly species do. (This protects the integrity of the plant.)
Heliconius specie butterflies have the unique ability to use their saliva, mixed with plant pollen, to create a very nutritious, high protein substance that they can take in through their proboscis.
Because this pollen mixture is so high in nutrients and protein, it allows them to live for several months instead of several weeks like most butterflies, giving them the ability to be more prolific breeders and pollenators.
Glasswing butterflies (Greta oto), are very fast flyers
who have the ability to fly carrying 40 x their body weight.
Their clear wings also give them the ability to avoid predation, as predators, when looking at them, see through their wings to the vegetation behind them, thus allowing the Glass Wing to be camouflaged, and remain unseen.
The Blue Morpho (Morpho peleides) is a unique species in that although it appears to be blue, in reality, it has no blue pigment in its entire body.
It's beautiful blue dorsal wing color is a result of light hitting the thousands of scales on its wings, and being refracted, causing the wings to appear blue when the are actually a grayish brown.
(When threatened by predators, they simply need to fly to a shaded area, and they will immediately revert back to their true grayish brown dorsal coloration, causing them to effectively disappear in the predator's eyes.)
Skipper butterflies, (family Hesperidae) of which there are over 3,500 species worldwide, are the fastest flying of all known butterflies.
They are capable of flying at top speeds of between 30 - 37 mph.
Monarch butterflies are unique in two aspects:
1) - As caterpillars, they feed almost exclusively on milkweed. (A single caterpillar can eat a leaf in 5 min.) Because milkweed is toxic, adult Monarchs are quite toxic to predators, causing predators to avoid them as a potential food source.
Several butterfly species, to avail themselves of a predator's reluctance to eat Monarchs, have evolved to look similar to Monarchs. (These evolutionary processes are known as Batesian or Mullerian Mimicry.)
2) - Monarchs do a fall migration from northeastern Canada and the U.S. to southern Mexico, a distance of approx. 3,000, with daily flights of 50 - 100 mi.
Julia butterflies have learned through their evolutionary process that the tears of caiman are high in salt and several other minerals.
Wanting to avail themselves of these salts and minerals, they will flutter in the eyes of the caiman until the eyes tear up, at which point the Julias use their proboscises to drink the tears, thus getting the benefit of the salt and minerals that the tears contain.
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