Interesting day yesterday at the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. Our 18 month old granddaughter was absolutely fascinated with the butterflies, especially the one that "photo-bombed" her picture.
Some interesting facts about butterflies that you may not have known. Butterfly wings are transparent...the wings are covered by thousands of tiny scales that reflect light into different colors. Butterflies taste with their feet. Butterflies can't fly if they're cold...ideal body temperature for flight is about 85 degrees....at 55 degrees they are rendered immobile. Butterflies often just live a couple of weeks. The top butterfly flight speed is 12 mph. Monarch butterflies journey from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 2,000 miles, and return north again in the spring. There are no butterflies on Antarctia.
An lastly, because I know you are all dying to know, the butterfly got its name from its poop. Long ago, Dutch scientists were studying butterflies. And they took a look at their poop — which is officially called frass. They noticed that the droppings looked an awful lot like butter. So they gave the insect the name butterfly. Some people suggest there’s another explanation for the name of these beautiful bugs. At one time, it was believed that witches turned themselves into butterflies and then flew off in search of food, especially butter.