Some people think butterflies are beautiful, while others just see them as insects. I tend to agree with both, in that butterflies are beautiful but they are also insects. Just like all insects butterflies have six legs, two antennae and three body parts. The body is made up of the head, thorax (chest) and abdomen (tail).
Butterflies also have four wings that are connected to the thorax. There are many different species of butterflies so this means there are many different types and colors of butterfly wings. Some are large while some are small some are bright and olthers are dull. What you might wonder is why though are there so many variations?
Similar to everything else in the natural world, it all comes down to basic survival and reproduction. Butterflies come in various sizes and have different colored wings depending on where they live, and how they make their living. In some cases if they can match their surroundings it will be a lot harder to be spotted by a predator. As the name suggests the Australian Leafwing butterfly is green and shaped like a leaf. Some butterflies have large spots on their wings in order to trick a predator into thinking those are eyes of a larger animal.
Bright colors on a butterfly advertise something entirely different to predators, such as providing a warning to predators that they are bad tasting. Alternatively some brightly colored butterflies are mimicking a bad tasting butterfly. Colors can also come into play for finding a mate who looks for particular colors and patterns. Lastly color can help or hurt a butterfly when it comes to heat, because darker colors are better at soaking up the heat which butterflies need. Although butterflies may vary in appearance they all have the same life cycle.
It all begins with an egg which is uaually laid on a leaf. Once that egg hatches a larva caterpillar emerges and begins to eat immediately. After the caterpillar grows an immense amount it turns into a pupa which is the resting stage for the larva. When a certain amount of time passes a beautiful adult emerges with wings.
In the larva stage caterpillars can eat leafs and flowers but once they become adult butterflies they can onlt eat liquids. In order to sip up liquids butterflies and moths have a proboscis. They can uncurl it when they are eatingand curl back up when they are not. Most butterflies live on nectar from flowers but some will drink the juice of rotten fruit.
We have only been able to find butterfly fossils tracking to early cretaceous which was about 130 million years ago. It is rational to say that butterflies evolved along with flowers. Due to the fact that both caterpillars and adult butterflies eat flowers. Also butterflies are a great help with transporting flowers pollen.
"ButterflyWing Anatomy" All about Butterflies. Ehchanted Learning. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
"What Is a Butterfly" All about Butterflies. Enchanted Learning. Web. 7 Nov.2010.
This is a pretty interesting blog post. I absolutely love that you did one on butterflies! Butterflies are one of nature's greatest insects because of their beauty and usefulness in helping to pollinate flowers and other angiosperms.
ReplyDeleteOne of the only things that I would say about your blog is that when you mentioned specific butterflies, you could have included the scientific name as well. I found the picture that you used absolutely beautiful! I also found it really interesting that some butterflies are bright colored to ward off predators, while others are bright colored to mimic the bad tasting ones. I thought it was cool that the colors help with mating and allowing the butterflies to find each other easily. Overall, this post was interesting and made me smile!