Chewing not an option for straw-like mouth of the butterfly

"What do butterflies eat?," asked Nicole Peterson, 9, a third-grader at W.C. Petty Elementary School in Antioch.

You can learn a lot about butterflies at the Notebaert Nature Museum's Judy Istock Butterfly Haven in Chicago.

The park-like room is crammed with hundreds of trees and flowering plants to make it seem like an outdoor habitat. Everywhere you look there are colorful butterflies from all over the world and even a few small birds. Some of the butterflies are emerging from cocoons, some are resting on tree limbs, some are fluttering around the room. Some of the thousand or so butterflies are perched at a butterfly's version of a dinner table -- a tray loaded with over-ripe fruit.

Soggy fruit that's dripping with juice is a perfect meal for a butterfly. A butterfly mouth is designed like a straw so it sips food -- nectar or juice from over-ripe fruit. Chewing is out of the question.

Doug Taron, curator of biology at the museum, said bananas and over-ripe watermelon are prepared and placed in trays around the room.

Different types of butterflies like other foods as well, Taron said. "Adult butterflies around here drink nectar from flowers. Some types feed on sap from trees."

Taron described one of the more unusual foods butterflies eat. "In May we had an unusually warm day. A species that normally over winters as an adult had emerged, and the butterflies were on a bridle trail drinking at the horse droppings."

More about droppings. While no one knows for sure, word experts believe the word butterfly refers to the yellow color of the insect's droppings.

Butterflies are insects from the scientific order Lepidoptera. They begin life as a caterpillar, spin a cocoon and hormones fuel their miraculous change into adults as butterflies.

Taron said the best time to visit the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven is at 2 p.m. every day when the newly emerged butterflies are released.