How Butterflies Drink and Eat: What You Need to Know

Just like you drink through a straw, a butterfly drinks through its proboscis – which is like an in-built straw. A butterfly doesn’t have a visible, exterior mouth. So it cannot chew its food. Hence it must drink its food.

A caterpillar has a visible, exterior mouth and it chews on its food – the leaves. But once the caterpillar goes into its cocoon and emerges as a butterfly it loses its mouth and in its place is the proboscis – a long, tubular straw-like extension shaped like an antenna. When it’s not feeding, the proboscis is coiled inward.

Flowers position their pollen at their neck and at the tip of their petals. A butterfly searching for nectar first lands on the flower and tastes the nectar with its feet. Then it swings around and extends its proboscis down the tube to drink. The pollen sticks to the feet and the throat of the butterfly. When the same butterfly visits another flower, pollination takes place.