Ovipositing

Ovipositing is defined as the laying of eggs, used especially when in reference to insects laying eggs. Butterflies are true specialists, with the larvae usually able to consume only a small number of plants or sometimes even just one or two plant species.

After mating, a gravid (filled with eggs) female butterfly must go in search of host plants that her young will be able to consume. Butterflies in part visually recognize these plants with their amazing eyes. After spotting a likely suspect, the female butterfly will land on each plant and taste it using sensors called chemoreceptors or "taste hairs" that are much like taste buds on her feet. The taste hairs are actually 200 times more sensitive than human taste buds and help the female butterfly determine if she is on the right plant to lay eggs.

Depending upon the species, the female butterfly will either land upon the host plant, or in some large species will just grasp the host plant with her feet while hovering in place next to the host plant. She will carefully curve her body under and deposit an egg on the host plant, gluing it to the plant with a sticky gum-like substance that her body secretes.

Some butterfly eggs are laid in groups (like the eggs of the Pipevine and Polydamas Swallowtails) and those larvae grow up together feeding gregariously. Other species lay their eggs one at a time and the larvae may never bump into one of their many siblings.

Female butterflies, depending upon species, can lay anywhere from a few to a few hundred eggs. Journey North, a website that tracks the northward progress of the monarch migration each year, captured a single female butterfly named "Ms. Monarch" and recorded her egg-laying progress for the rest of her life. Ms. Monarch laid 326 eggs in just two weeks!

By laying so many eggs, butterflies assure that no matter how many predators or diseases may effect their species, it is likely that at least a few of those eggs will survive to be adult butterflies and complete the cycle with their own eggs!