Butterflies Really Seem To Like Drinking Cougar Pee

Butterflies prefer drinking urine from mountain lions over that of cows or humans—though scientists aren't quite sure why. Photo Credit:Geoff Gallice The sight of dozens of butterflies congregated in one spot might be beautiful, but if you know what they're actually doing, you might not want to get too close. When butterflies get together like this, it's usually to slurp up some nutritional goodies from an unexpected source—like, oh I don't know, animal pee. This behavior is often called "puddling" or "mudding", though the insects don't just suck on damp earth. To get missing nutrients like sodium which aren't common in the nectars they usually drink, they'll sip up turtle tears, fecal fluids, and even the juices from rotting corpses. So they're certainly not above a nice little pee puddle if it contains what they're looking for—and it does. There's sodium in basically all urine because it's used to draw the fluid from the body, though the amount varies.