Butterflies

A butterfly is an insect. It has six legs and four wings.
A butterfly’s body head has three parts. The abdomen helps a butterfly eat, breathe, and make thorax babies. The thorax is where the legs and wings are abdomen attached.
A butterfly’s head has a mouth, two eyes and two antennae. Butterflies use their antennae to smell.
A butterfly has a long tube for a mouth that works just like a straw.
It helps the butterfly drink nectar from inside flowers.
A mother butterfly lays her eggs on plants. She chooses plants that her babies can eat for food.
Butterfly eggs only take a few days or weeks to hatch. Baby caterpillars are tiny when they are first born.
Caterpillars do nothing but eat and grow. Some grow to full size within a week. Others can take up to a year.
When the caterpillar reaches full size, it finds a safe place and attaches itself to a branch. Its skin comes off and under the old skin is a new, hard skin called a chrysalis.
Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar is turning into a butterfly.
Sometimes this takes a week, but it can take up to eight months.
The caterpillar has changed into a butterfly! It is ready to fly away, lay more eggs and start the cycle all over again.
