Did you know?

Curiosities of the wonderful world of butterflies.

• The largest lepidoptera is the Atlas Moth ( Attacus atlas ) with a wingspan of up to 30 cm, and the smallest known species ( Nepticulidae ) are just 3 mm in wingspan. With a wingspan of 20 cm the Giant Peacock Moth ( Saturnia pyri ) is the largest lepidoptera in Europe.

• Butterflies don’t taste with their tongue, they taste with their feet.

• Using their antennae, some male moths detect females at a distance of 5 km.

• From the moment it emerges from the egg, until it transforms into a chrysalis, a caterpillar will multiply its weight 10.000 times. The quantity eaten daily by the caterpillar would be the equivalent of a human eating more than 100 kg of lettuce.

• Caterpillars are considered a delicacy in some countries.

• Butterflies and moths appeared 150 million years ago, and they co-existed with the dinosaurs.

• The females of the Spodoptera littoralis moth can lay up to a record 4,000 eggs.

• Some butterflies migrate thousands of kilometres: the Monarch butterfly in North-America, or the Painted Lady ( Cynthia cardui ) which hibernates in North-Africa and returns to Europe in Spring, sometimes flying as far north as the Artic Circle.