Caterpillars spend all of their time eating leaves and growing. Once they grow big enough, they attach to something solid and shed their skin to take on a new form - a Chrysalis. Over the course of the next 3 weeks or so, the caterpillar dissolves most of its body in order to feed new growing butterfly parts inside of it, which it's been carrying around for its entire life. Once the new butterfly body is grown, it sheds the skin of the Chrysalis and emerges.

So is it a whole new animal, or just a transformed one? Well, that’s hard to say, but studies have shown that butterflies retain some memories of their lives as caterpillars. Hope they remember munching all those leaves!

Butterflies have two eyes, but like all insects, their eyes are compound eyes. That’s sort of like each eye being made of thousands of tiny eyes that look in all different directions. Then the butterfly’s brain puts all the images together into one. This lets it see all around itself without having to move its eyes, like we humans do. The tradeoff? Compared to us, butterfly sight is really blurry.

Most adult butterflies live for around 2-3 weeks. This is of course after a few weeks as a caterpillar, followed by a few weeks as a chrysalis. The length of each stage varies by species. Some butterflies live up to 6 months!

The Monarch butterfly migrates from the United States to Mexico each year, mainly to avoid cold weather. But how do those tiny butterflies make a 3,000 mile journey?

When they’re heading North from Mexico, monarch butterflies migrate over the course of several generations. So the butterfly that arrives at the end is the great-grandchild (or great-great-grandchild) of the one that started!

But when they’re heading South, monarchs birth a “Super Generation” - a generation that lives 8 times longer than a regular Monarch butterfly, and are able to make the entire journey by themselves!

Butterflies mainly feed on nectar from flowers. Nectar is a sugary substance that flowers produce in order to attract animals like butterflies, birds, and bees, which spread the flower’s pollen as the animals move from flower to flower. Some butterflies also eat tree sap, rotting fruit, and even animal dung!

Butterflies have colorful wings primarily to ward off predators, but different species do it in different ways. For some, like the Milkweed butterfly, the bright color signals to predators that they are toxic. For others, like the Owl butterfly, their wings look like two giant eyes, which may trick predators into thinking they are face-to-face with a much larger, scarier animal. Other butterflies, like the Indian Leaf butterfly, have wings that help them disguise themselves as leaves or twigs. However they do it, the wings we think of as beautiful are there to help keep butterflies from being eaten!

Yes! Many butterflies have small holes at the base of their wings they use to hear. And there’s at least one group of butterflies - a group that includes the Monarch butterfly - that also have thick veins in their wings that help them hear. That’s right - Monarch butterflies use their wings to help them hear!

The fastest butterfly is the Skipper - it can fly at up to 37 mph (60 km/h) - faster than the world’s fastest human!

Butterflies don’t fly in the rain - they take shelter under branches or piles of wood. They stay in one place, folding their wings and hanging on until the rain stops. Sounds cozy!

The world’s biggest butterfly is Queen Alexandra’s birdwing. The females can have wingspans up to 27 cm - almost a foot long!