# Butterfly poo?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butterfly-poo/62231
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 17, 2001, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butterfly-poo/62231 "2001-04-17T01:58:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![austinisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@austinisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/austinisco)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2001, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butterfly-poo/62231/1 "2001-04-17T01:58:55Z")

</div>

Do butterflies poo? They must because all living things create waste. But I’ve never seen butterfly poo before. Or maybe I’ve just never recognized it. So let me rephrase that – what does butterfly poo look like?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2001, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butterfly-poo/62231/2 "2001-04-17T02:26:12Z")

</div>

Some butterflies don’t eat at all as adults (they do all the eating they’re going to do as caterpillars). And those that do eat subsist mostly on nectar or other liquids. Nectar consists almost entirely of water and sugar, and sugar is digested without producing solid waste. So the answer is, most butterflies excrete little if any solid waste.
