This butterfly is notorious for the beauty of its orange, white and black wings, its long migration, and its toxicity. The butterfly lays its eggs almost exclusively on milkweed plants, which are poisonous.
This beautiful butterfly has wings that are colored orange, black, and white like the monarch, though the pattern on the wings is different. Still, the colors should warn predators that this insect is toxic. The caterpillar feeds on the passionflower and is armed with venomous spines.
This long-lived, long-winged butterfly gets both its long life and its toxin from the pollen it eats and the poison it stores as a caterpillar as it eats the passionflower. Pollen is converted in its body to toxins called cyanogenic glycosides.
It is one of the most toxic of the poisonous butterflies. The butterfly gets its toxins because the caterpillar feeds on the toxic pipevine. This plant is full of aristolochic acid which makes both the butterfly and the caterpillar unpalatable to their prospective predators.
The postman butterfly eats pollen, a rare behavior in butterflies. Because it’s toxic, many butterflies mimic the postman and fly with it to give them some protection from predators. The postman is not only bad tasting but has a strong smell that even humans can sense.
The queen butterfly is a milkweed butterfly, though the levels of alkaloids and cardenolides that its caterpillar stores and passes on to the adult can vary. The queen caterpillar does not have to feed exclusively on the poisonous milkweed but can thrive on plants such as honey vine and dogbane.
It gets its toxins from the cycad, an ancient plant that has been around since before the dinosaurs. It gives the Atala a poison called cycasin, which is notorious for destroying the liver if it’s ingested.
This butterfly gets its poison from oleander and milkweed. Besides being inedible overall, the common Indian crow plays dead when it’s attacked by a predator and releases a nasty, toxic liquid that makes the predator let go of it and vomit.
These are some of the largest butterflies on earth, and most of them are poisonous. They are also astonishingly beautiful, and their beauty has made them the target of collectors. This, in turn, has caused many to be listed as endangered.
It secretes a poison called ouabain, which hunters spread on the tips of arrows. When the arrow pierces an animal even as large as a hippopotamus the animal drops dead of a heart attack. The toxin not only protects the butterfly but gives it its glorious colors.