Friday Fun Fact - What Do Butterflies Eat?

Friday Fun Fact – What Do Butterflies Eat?

• February 8, 2016

Ever wondered what do butterflies eat?

Firstly, they don’t really eat – not as humans or other animals do, anyway!

A butterfly’s mouth part is made up of two lobes, like straws, which are joined together. This means they can only drink liquids.

Butterflies spend about 50% of the time looking for food. They are generally associated with flowers because they need the high energy from nectar which is mostly sugar. Flying takes a lot of energy!

Flowers make up the bulk of their diet, but there are many other sources of food for the discerning opportunist.

They do need other nutrients like nitrogen, salts and amino acids. These can be found in tree sap, wet soil and flower pollen. Somewhat less appealing, they can also get these nutrients from rotten fruit or vegetables, faeces, urine, sweat, tears and (the least attractive of all) rotting carcasses!

These nutritional needs stem from the caterpillar’s food. Plant have almost none of the salts that all animals need. Even plant eating mammals like horses and cows need salts – this is also why plants need fertilisers.

When butterflies mate, the male will give the female a package of these nutrient and salts, plus everything else she needs to fertilize her eggs. The female will use this package to provision her eggs. This shortens the time a female spends looking for these compounds and gives her more time to concentrate on finding host plants and laying eggs. This has led to a big difference in feeding habits of male and female butterflies.

Often, large groups of mostly male butterflies can be seen congregating around muddy puddles or creek beds. This is called “Mud Puddling” or “Puddle Clubs”. Males will often visit plants and flowers that the female shows no interest in. These plant have compounds that are precursors for the pheromones the males use to entice a female to mate with them. Females can assess the male’s ability to provide the nutrients by their body odour.

Food is not just about filling your tummy – turns out it’s very important for social activity as well!

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Australian Butterfly Sanctuary Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement

• australianbutterflies.com
• February 9, 2026

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This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.

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If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email

Screen-reader and keyboard navigation

Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:

1. Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.

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   Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Disability profiles supported in our website

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• Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
• Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
• ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
• Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
• Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments

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We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).

Notes, comments, and feedback

Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to