Nature: Butterflies and Moths

Snout Butterfly 吻蝶 (Libytheidae, Snout Butterflies)

One day you may see a butterfly land on a leaf or flower near you that has what looks like a long nose sticking away out in front of its face. This is the Snout Butterfly and no other is like it. But forget about the nose, because what looks like a nose is really part of the mouth, the part called the palpi, which are used by an insect to feel food. Somehow the Snout Butterfly uses these very long palpi to detect food it wants to eat. “Maybe,” you would say, “it uses the palpi to help it suck up the food.” This is not likely, as every butterfly has a very long tongue, usually kept curled within the month, which it uncurls to put down in a flower and suck up nectar just as you would suck up soda with a straw.

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