My Butterfly can be much more than a delightful gift for a child. Peering into the jar and watching the colourful creature’s antics may inspire your child to find out more about butterflies in science, in stories and songs.
For example, did you know that butterflies taste with their feet and smell with their antennae? The butterflies taste leaves to check if they are suitable for laying their eggs, and that the leaves will provide nutrition when the eggs hatch into caterpillars. The importance of caterpillar nutrition can’t be understated, because some butterflies don’t eat as adults – as they have no mouths – and have to survive on the energy from food eaten when they were in caterpillar form. Butterflies can range in size from as small as an eighth of an inch to a massive 12 inches. The top speed of a butterfly is 12 miles an hour, although its less colourful neighbour, the moth, can attain 25 miles an hour. Monarch butterflies migrate from the Great Lakes in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles. Although there are over 24,000 species of butterfly, there is only one place in the world you will never see one – Antarctica.
There is a wealth of fascinating information and stories to be found about butterflies. My Butterfly gifts are certainly fun, but more than that they can open a child’s mind to wonderful new worlds.
