Introduction

Did you know there are about 20,000 different kinds of butterflies in the world? Two of the more famous ones are the Monarch butterfly and the Queen Alexander. The Queen Alexander's female wing span can get almost up to 11 inches which is about 28 cm. The Queen Alexander can be found in New Guinea.

Monarch butterflies are one of the longest travelers in the world of butterflies. They can fly up to 6,000 km in a year, which is like flying from Canada to Mexico and back. (see chart). Not all the Monarch butterflies can fly that distance some die on the way.

Monarch butterflies can travel as much as 6000 kilometers a year in their annual migration .

Where does the Butterfly Get its Color from?

The butterflies get their beautiful colors from their loose powdery scales. If you hold a butterfly and you scrub its scales off its wing they become transparent just like moths, flies and other insects.

Butterflies also have pretty strange senses they smell with their antenae and taste with their feet. Have you ever tried to eat with your feet? (mainly impossible) (Here is a site with more information about butterfly sensory systems.)

Before the butterflies lay their eggs on a leaf they have to select one, how do they do that? They do it by some times landing on a leaf and tasting it with their feet, or looking at its shape or color. Some plants even defend them self by growing what looks to the butterflies like eggs but aren't real eggs, the butterflies usually like having their own leaf so they just keep on looking for another one.

Butterflies get their beautiful colors from their loose powdery scales.