Finger lickin’ good

MOST PEOPLE I know like to feed animals – pets at home, the monkeys and other animals in the zoo, and even livestock at a farm. A wet tongue, a warm nose, or soft, spongy lips brushing one’s fingers or palm is a nice sensation. It can make children, and even some grownups, squeal with delight. For older folks, getting an animal to eat out of one’s hands engenders a nice, peaceful feeling.

The lightest touch of all is the tickle of a butterfly’s tongue. It is so soft you can barely feel it. But you will never succeed in luring these creatures with food. The very act of extending your hand will probably frighten them away. They just will not accept food.

Butterflies, unlike the voracious caterpillars in their earlier stages of growth, do not eat in the normal sense of the word. They do not have mouthparts for chewing.

Instead they have a proboscis, a long tube like a flexible drinking straw through which they suck up liquid nutrients – nectar from flowers, fermenting fruit juice or tree sap.

Some butterfly species are partial to the juices of fermenting fruit lying on the forest floor. Collectors make use of this fact to bait them with over-ripe fruit. Pineapple is a highly “attractive” bait.

There’s another way to attract butterflies. Sometimes, without even consciously trying to entice them, you may find one or several landing on you. And it’s all just because you’re sweating. Yes, you can attract butterflies simply by working, or walking, up a good sweat. Trekkers and picnickers in Malaysia’s rainforests are quite often delighted to find butterflies alighting on them.

If you are careful not to make any sudden movement that would startle the creature, you may even see it extending its proboscis – like a long tongue – feeling, tasting and sucking up the sweat from your skin or clothing.

Like all living creatures, butterflies require salts for metabolism and they get them occasionally from perspiring nature-lovers, but mainly from ground seepage and a few other sources which, for the sake of good taste, shall not be mentioned.

So, now that you know the secret of making yourself irresistible to these beautiful, delicate creatures, getting a butterfly to “eat” out of your hand may be a simple matter of walking in the woods. But it just wouldn't be appropriate to say “No sweat!” ©