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Adult monarch butterflies drink water and sip nectar from flowering plants using
a sucking tube, that resembles a soda straw, and is called a proboscis. It is then coiled under its head when not in use.
The caterpillar's first meal is its own eggshell. After that, Monarch caterpillars
eat the poisonous milkweed leaves to incorporate the milkweed toxins into their bodies in order to poison their predators.
Milkweed (genus Asclepius) is a common plant that contains toxins. There
are more than 100 species of this perennial herb, containing varying concentrations of toxic chemicals (glycosides). The Monarch
is considered a beneficial insect because its caterpillar eats the noxious milkweed plant which invades some farms
Monarch
butterflies, like all butterflies, can only sip liquid food using a tube-like proboscis, which is a long, flexible "tongue."
This proboscis uncoils to sip food, and coils up again into a spiral when not in use. Monarchs drink nectar from many flowers,
including milkweed, dogbane, red clover, thistle, lantana, lilac, goldenrod, etc.
Butterflies and moths cannot chew food. Instead, they suck up liquids
through their long proboscises (tongues), which act like drinking straws. Their preferred food is nectar. This sugary fluid
is produced in the nectarines of the flower in order to attract insects such as butterflies and bees. Most species of butterfly
survive on nectar alone and spend most of their brief lives flitting from flower to flower in search of this juice. Some woodland
species extract sweet liquids from a wide variety of sources, including rotting fruit and sap oozing from wounds in trees.
A few species even suck on dung. However, these sources do not provide much real sustenance, which is why butterflies rarely
live for more than a few days.
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