The poison inside the butterfly is unlikely to be strong enough, and there are no known cases of humans dying from butterfly poisoning. However, it’s worth mentioning that even if a human decided to eat a nasty-tasting butterfly, this is unlikely to cause any serious harm. While people these days may not eat butterflies too often outside of some Spanish and Southeast Asian cultures, those individuals are well aware that while a number of butterflies may taste pretty good in their opinion, everyone can agree some species of butterfly are purposely nasty to prevent anyone from eating them! Often, a bad taste can indicate something is poisonous, and that is true with a number of kinds of butterflies. The way our sense of taste works we know that if something tastes awful, that generally means we should not eat it. So what would happen if a human tries to eat a butterfly? That’s why we say butterflies aren’t venomous.īut, they can be poisonous in another sense – that is, if another creature tries to eat them. Butterflies don’t have stingers, fangs, a mouth with teeth, or basically anything else that would allow them to inject their venom into another living being. They are simply not designed to fight or do any harm. How Can Butterflies Be Poisonous to Humans?īutterflies are very unlikely to harm humans (or any other mammal for that matter) because their physiology simply doesn’t allow it. Let’s examine via a Q&A format how certain butterflies can be poisonous to humans and animals, as well as which specific species should be avoided by us or our furry friends. Merely touching them with a hand (or paw) won’t harm you, but if you try and take a bite out of a poisonous butterfly, you’ll regret it! They then accumulate these toxins and they remain in the adult butterfly’s body, even though its diet changes. The interesting part is, butterflies typically get the poison from the plants they eat as caterpillars – which are sometimes toxic. Well, a number of butterflies actually have evolved to be poisonous. But, if they’re so delicate how can they possibly survive being preyed-on by bigger animals and bugs? Generally in life, when we see butterflies, the common knowledge is to not touch them as they are fragile and our body’s oils can harm them in addition to our strong fingers smushing up their bodies (which is just a shame).
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