1. How did the butterfly get it's name?
It is commonly believed that the word "butterfly" is a derived from "butter-coloured fly" which is attributed to the yellow of the male Brimstone butterfly.
Here's some fun facts!
2. A butterfly's lifecycle is made up of four parts
Egg, larva (caterpillars), pupa (chrysalis) and adult.
3. Representations of butterflies date back 3,500 years
Buterflies can be seen in Egyptian frescoes at Thebes.
4. Is there anywhere that butterflies aren't found?
Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera (an order of insects that comprises the butterflies and moths) have been found.
5. How many species of butterfly are there?
There are about 18,500 named species of butterflies. Moths are even more numerous - about 140,000 species of them were counted all over the world. The photo above shows a garden tiger moth.
6. Butterflies are cold blooded
They will not fly if the temperature is below 10 degrees Celcius.
7. The Brimstone butterfly has the longest lifespan.
It's about 9 - 10 months - the longest of any adult butterfly!
8. Butterflies and insects have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies, called the exoskeleton.
This protects the insect and keeps water inside their bodies so they don’t dry out.
9. Many butterflies can taste with their feet
They do this to find out whether the leaf they sit on is good to lay eggs on to be their caterpillars' food or not.
10. An adult butterfly will eventually emerge from the chrysalis where it will wait a few hours
This is so its wings can full with blood and it can dry before flying for the first time.
11. Britain has 59 resident butterfly species
There are half a dozen or more that visit us regularly from abroad, like the painted lady seen above, and which breed here in warm weather.
12. Five butterflies have become extinct in Britain in the last 150 years
These are the large copper, mazarine blue, black-veined white, large blue and large tortoiseshell. The chequered skipper became extinct in England in 1976, but still survives in Scotland. The large blue has been successfully reintroduced using butterflies from Sweden.