How many butterfly years in a day?

Answer 1

A day represents a different portion of A butterfly's life depending on the species of butterfly. There are some species that only live a few weeks as adult butterflies, and others that live for months ( like the mourning cloak, monarch, and compton's tortoiseshell). That would make each day range from being almost 4 "butterfly years" to less than half a "butterfly year". If you consider the entire time that a butterfly lives from egg to adult, the question becomes even more difficult. Some single- brooded species live only a month or so from the time they hatch as a caterpillar to the time they die as adults. Some Arctic species live for 2 years, but they spend most of that time in estivation, and only exist for a month or so as an adult butterfly. That would mean that a day is less than a tenth of a "butterfly year" if you count the entire time the insect is alive, from the time it hatches as a caterpillar. Essentially, a butterfly is just a caterpillar's means of reproduction, so the time they spend as adult butterflies is not really an accurate representation of how long their lives really are. Most of a butterfly's life is not really spent as a butterfly.