Print PageThe adults of many lepidopteran species feed on mud, dung, bird droppings, carrion, sweat, and urine, a behavior which is termed “puddling.” Puddling is believed to be a form of supplementary feeding used to obtain limiting nutrients rather than to obtain calories. Prior research indicates that in many cases the purpose of puddling behavior is the acquisition of sodium. It has also been suggested that some species puddle to acquire nitrogen. Both nutrients are often limiting in butterflies’ primary food sources, but data on nitrogen-seeking behavior are scarce and sometimes conflicting. Puddling behavior is poorly understood and most prior research has focused on temperate species.
We assessed puddling lepidopterans’ preferences for several nutrients (sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, urea, albumin, and hydrolyzed casein) in Madre de Dios, Peru. We captured 296 puddling adults representing over 60 species, offered them aqueous solutions of high and low concentrations of each nutrient in a random order, and scored their preferences for each solution.
Results/Conclusions
Overall, all butterfly families tested (Nymphalidae, Pieridae, Riodinidae and Hesperiidae) preferred sodium over water and over all other nutrients offered. The puddling substrate upon which a butterfly was captured significantly affected preferences for sodium and urea. Butterflies captured while puddling on bird droppings were less likely to accept the high concentration of salt and more likely to accept both concentrations of urea than individuals captured while puddling on mud. Most individuals caught on bird droppings were pierids, and this family drove the observed increase in preference for urea on this substrate.
Our results corroborate prior findings that the acquisition of sodium is a primary goal of puddling butterflies. More novel is the implication that some butterflies also prefer urea when puddling. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic study of puddling in the Neotropics.
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