Moth vampire. Butterfly drinks blood. The largest night butterfly

The widest range of all insects

At the American white butterfly Hyphantria cunea from the bear family. This pest of has the widest habitat. Its caterpillar feeds on 636 species of plants that grow in different parts of the globe. It is inferior to the gypsy moth butterfly and the Japanese beetle. The gypsy moth butterfly feeds on plants whose parts contain tannin.

Vision

The number of facets in the eye of a butterfly is 17,000; in a fly, there are 4,000 facets; and in a dragonfly, 28,000.

Butterfly variety

Body temperature

To fly, the butterfly's muscles must be warmed up to at least 30 degrees. That is why you can so often see a butterfly, which, with its wings wide open, basks in the sun - it replenishes the spent energy.

organs of taste

Where is the taste organ in a butterfly? Because she has no language. In the trunk? But I didn't guess. Imagine - on the paws. And this “language” of hers is 2000 times more sensitive than that of a person. As soon as a butterfly touches delicious pollen or sweet juice with its paws, it immediately understands what's what, and its proboscis instantly unfolds.

Butterfly proboscis

A distinctive feature of butterflies is a soft proboscis. It is always coiled up and unfolds when the butterfly eats. The length of the proboscis, by the way, depends on the depth of the calyx of the flower on which butterflies of a certain species feed. Sometimes the proboscis is very short, and sometimes it is long, up to 35 centimeters, like that of the Madagascar hawk moth.

The largest night butterfly in the world -Attacus Altas.
With a wingspan of 30 cm, it is often mistaken for a bird.

Butterfly breath

The butterfly breathes through the thinnest tubes - tracheas, penetrating its entire body. They are connected to the outside world by two holes on the chest and sixteen on the abdomen.

Upper limit of hearing in insects

Caterpillar of the diurnal peacock eye 1000 Hz
Grasshopper 90,000 Hz

Tongue on feet

Butterflies recognize the taste of plants with organs that are located on their legs.

Butterfly heart

Do butterflies have a heart? Yes there is. Only not in the chest, but ... in the abdomen. And their blood is not red, but green. It does not contain hemoglobin, and it does not carry oxygen, as in humans, but delivers nutrients, various hormones and enzymes to all insect cells.

color vision

night moths Deilephila elpenor in the dark they "switch" their vision to color. During the experiment, the insect found yellow and blue artificial flowers in complete darkness, choosing them from eight other shades of gray. The second series of experiments was carried out under moonlight. The moth was wrong only 10% of the time. It has been found that the insect cannot distinguish between a brighter shade of color and a darker one. This means that it uses exactly "spectral analysis" for vision, i.e. in other words, the moth sees in color.

It was found that the insect has three color receptors - blue, green and ultraviolet. At night, when there is very little light, the complex structure of the moth's eye captures the light and reflects it inside the eye about 600 times, thus amplifying the light signal.

These moths live in Europe and Asia, fly out in May-June, breed at the end of August.

Flying Deilephila elpenor

Track weight

The caterpillar can lift up to 25 times its own weight.

spinning record

A silkworm cocoon consists of 4,601,100 meters of thread and is made in 72 hours.

Mutually beneficial cooperation

Yucca moth(yucca moth), which lives in the desert, is the sole pollinator of flowering yucca cacti. Pollination occurs in the following way. A butterfly collects pollen from one cactus in its mouth and carries it to another cactus, flying to the smell of flowers. Upon arrival, she unerringly unloads pollen in the right place to set seeds. Here, the butterfly lays three eggs, and its caterpillars feed on cactus seeds, which were formed as a result of pollination. They eat a small fraction of the seeds, most of the seeds are preserved and give life to new plants.

Butterflies breed on schedule

It turns out that butterflies are not at all "carefree". There is nothing more orderly than their lives. The morning is dedicated to collecting nectar. In the world of insects, the butterfly is the best pollinator of flowers after bees. By noon comes the hour of copulation. The males chase the females. Soon the latter lay their eggs on the leaves. In the evening calm reigns again. The butterflies return to their hiding place.

Copulating partners may belong to different species. The night moth female Prince of Darkness (Attacus atlas) formed a pair with a male diurnal blue Guianan Morpho. The female Attacus emitted her sensual ferments, her scent was so strong that even people could smell it from a distance. The copulation lasted only 10 minutes. The female laid eggs. But to no avail. In Attacus butterflies, copulation can last up to 36 hours, the female can lay 200 eggs. Therefore, it is necessary that the male ensure fertilization. He has to work hard!

poisonous blood

Pestryanki (Zygaenidae) stand out immediately - their black body casts steel, wings - with scarlet spots. They are slow and clumsy, and do not fly well. It is worth taking a butterfly in your hands - it pretends to be dead, releasing a yellow, disgustingly smelling liquid from the joints. This is the poisonous blood of the parsley, making it inedible. Because the butterflies sit quietly on plants, warning everyone with their color. Their caterpillars are also poisonous.

The rarest butterfly
Several species claim the title of the rarest butterfly, including the largest of all butterflies - sailboat of Queen Alexandra. She lives in Papua New Guinea. The survival of this species was not facilitated by the attention paid to it by collectors.

Climate change threatens monarchs
monarch butterflies that travel hundreds of miles to spend the winter in Mexico's mountain forests could be gone in as little as 50 years. Rainy weather, combined with the cold that is typical for these places, can cause the extinction of these colorful butterflies. The increase in humidity in the mountainous coniferous forests west of Mexico City will leave butterflies without any shelter for the winter.

Monarchs are the most common of the North American butterflies. Every summer they breed several times, and the last generation makes a record migration in the fall, moving to Mexico even from Canada. There they live in forests that provide shelter from rain and cold (the temperature here can drop below zero). In the spring, the surviving monarchs return north, stopping in milkweed fields to lay their eggs. Butterflies hatched from them continue their journey to the north, from where the next flight to the south will begin in the fall.

These butterflies have a very narrow temperature and humidity range that they can tolerate in winter. So, the combination of temperatures below zero with rain is almost fatal for them. When this happened in January 2002, almost 80% of the butterflies that wintered in Mexico died.

butterfly color
The color of their wings is created by tiny overlapping scales that reflect light.

Twig caterpillars

Moth caterpillars (Geometridae) have an amazing ability to imitate twigs and petioles, which is facilitated by protective coloring. Having frozen in such a "protruding" state, the caterpillar becomes invisible to enemies. Butterflies also got their name moths, or surveyors, due to the peculiar way of movement of their caterpillars. In caterpillars of moths, the abdominal legs are developed only on the sixth and last segments of the abdomen, which is associated with a peculiar "gait" with a loop-like bending of the body.

Butterflies do not fly into the light

They are attracted to the darkest place, which, in their opinion, is located directly behind the light source.

Travelers

Moth moths (Pyraustidae) outwardly resemble moths. Butterflies with a wingspan of 20-25 mm, variable in color. They feed on flowers around the clock. In search of food, they migrate, walking up to a kilometer a day. They overwinter in the soil in a cocoon. Butterflies fly over a distance of 30-100 km, and are carried by the wind for 400-500 km. Meadow Moth (Margaritia sticticalis) can give outbreaks of mass reproduction in the Baikal region, assuming the dimensions of a disaster.

Other travelers are hawks (Sphingidae), large butterflies with a streamlined body and narrow wings. They reach speeds of up to 50 km per hour and fly long distances.

Butterfly's plume

The luxurious plume of the male Saturnia butterfly serves to trap odorous pheromone molecules.

When the female is 2 km away

A male emperor moth can sense and locate a female of its own species from a distance of two kilometers.

The scented substance of butterflies

To obtain one gram of the odorous substance of butterflies, with which females call males, it was necessary to “take away” it from four million butterflies. mulberry silkworm.

At gypsy moth there is more odorous substance than mulberry: 2.5 million butterflies are required to obtain a gram.

males gypsy moth smell the female in moderate wind at a distance of 3.8 km. No foreign odors prevent them from smelling the right smell.

big peacock butterfly fly to the female, having covered a distance of 8 km. From a distance of 4.1 km to the female sitting under gauze in the cage, almost half returned, and from a distance of 11 km - more than a quarter of the released males.

Silkworms do not form a pair

That's why they called him gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar). Males and females are very different in appearance. First, in size. Males (wingspan up to 45 mm) are much smaller than females, whose wingspan is up to 75 mm. Secondly, they also differ in color - the male is darker than the female. Its front wings are brownish-gray with transverse dark wavy stripes. Antennae feathery, abdomen thin. The female is off-white, with distinct zigzag stripes on the forewings. The abdomen is thickened, densely covered with brown-yellow hairs. Antennae thin, comb-like.

The biggest butterfly

it swallowtail butterfly Ornithoptera alexandrae from Papua New Guinea. The wingspan of females can be more than 280 mm, and the mass can be more than 25 g. Some butterflies have a wingspan of 32 cm and occupy an area of ​​​​over 300 sq. Km. They can be considered the largest insects. Another large butterfly was caught in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on September 17, 2003. The wingspan of the insect is 22.6 centimeters. This is 26 millimeters more than a butterfly caught in Canada, which was previously considered the largest in the world. And although the giants of the insect world live in the tropics, there are also large insects in our country: sailboats, some peacock eyes and cocoon

The largest night butterfly

...this is Cosdinoscera hercules, living in Australia and New Guinea, whose wingspan is 263.2 cm2, and their span is -280 mm. In 1948, a capture was reported in Innisfail, pc. Queensland, Australia, females with a wingspan of 360 mm. The world's largest night butterfly reaches 30 cm in size - this is the prince of darkness called Attacus atlas, in nature it is found in the Atlas Mountains. This butterfly is considered the star of the Honfleur Orangerie in Paris. The audience can watch her graceful dances among the real jungle grown under glass walls.

Wing fluctuations

The wings of insects are different, and they fluctuate at different frequencies. So, for example, a fly makes 330-350 strokes per second; a bee - 300 when it flies with honey, and 440 when it flies without cargo; bumblebees - 190-240 times per second flap their wings, and mosquitoes - 500-600 (some species even 1000 times); wasps - 250; horseflies - 100; dragonflies - 40-100; ladybug - 75; May beetle - 45; moths - 35-40; locust - 20.

The smallest butterfly

It lives in Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Arabia, the tropical zone of Asia and Australia, the length of the front wing of which is only 6 mm. She is active during the day.

The smallest night butterfly
...this is Stigmella ridiculosa living in the Canary Islands. Among all 165,000 Lepidoptera species known to us, it is recognized as the smallest. The wingspan and body length are about 2 mm.

Who likes to eat

Among butterflies there are those whose caterpillars feed on wax and wool. These are wax moths and clothes, fur coat and other moths. But most butterflies live off wild plants.

Flight speeds of cabbage - 9 km / h
One-day flight speeds - 1.8 km / h

The sharpest scent

...in the male peacock's eye (Saturnia pavonia), which is able to smell the sexual attractant (pheromone) of a virgin female within a radius of 11 km. The female carries less than 0.0001 mg of this odorous substance, which turned out to be the highest alcohol (C16H29OH).

maternal worries

Having laid their eggs, butterflies take care of their safety, some butterflies lay them in the soil, others fill the eggs with secretions of glands that harden in the air - a capsule is obtained, the capsules are usually masked to match the color of the surface. Another way is that insects cover the testicles with hairs or scales that are scraped from the abdomen.

caterpillars

They actively feed, grow and accumulate substances for the following transformations. During the growth of silkworm caterpillars increase their mass by 10 thousand times. Most caterpillars lead a free lifestyle, but some are attached to habitats: some live in the soil, others build apartments for themselves from leaves, and others live in fruits.

Monarch caterpillar

The furthest migration

Danaid butterflies. tagged female danaid butterflies Danaus plexippusi, released by Donald Davis in Preskill Park near Brighton, Ontario Ave, Canada on September 6, 1986, was recaptured at 3432 km, on a mountain near Anyangueo, Mexico, on January 15, 1987.

The shortest life
...at true mayflies (family Ephemmeroidae), which spends 2-3 years in the larval stage at the bottom of lakes and rivers, while adult butterflies live 2-3 days, sometimes even just a day.

Danaid hatching

The highest flight speed among insects

At cutworms ipsilon Agrotis ipsilon, butterflies with a wingspan of 45 mm, which can reach 97 and even 113 km / h. The flight speed of an insect depends on its mass, air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, oxygen saturation of the air, flight angle, and even the isolation of the habitat. Reliable data are available regarding the flight speed of the cotton bollworm Helicoverpa zea - ​​28 km/h.

longest diapause

Butterfly yucca (yucca moth) from the family Prodoxidae has the longest diapause. Adult insects Yucca baccata (Agavaceae) from Nevada hatched from larvae after 19 years, all the while they were observed in the laboratory.

Yucca

internal clock

During their winter flight to Mexico, monarch butterflies determine the direction of their journey ... by internal clocks. In autumn, monarchs travel from central and eastern North America to Central Mexico. Since only every fourth or fifth generation of butterflies migrate, they migrate instinctively. Although scientists have established quite accurately that butterflies navigate with the help of the sun, much less was known about how they adapt to the movements of the sun during the day. Some researchers have suspected that part of the butterflies' solar compass is their circadian rhythm, the "internal clock." Scientists have determined that a common "clock gene" called per is an important part of the monarch butterfly's internal clock. Constant lighting disrupts the functioning of this gene. After several days of living in the laboratory, where the length of the day was approximately equal to the natural one for autumn, the butterflies maintained the correct direction to the southwest. Butterflies, the light regime for which was shifted (lighting from 1 a.m. to 1 p.m.), chose the southeast. Those who were under constant illumination flew directly towards the sun - apparently, they had lost their sense of time.

You may change your attitude to familiar things.

How many insects do we eat without knowing it? Why does your mattress become twice as heavy in 10 years? What's dirtier than a toilet?

Here are a few facts that are probably best not to know.

Unusual facts

1. The Romans used crushed mouse brain as toothpaste.

2. When Eskimo babies have a cold, they mothers suck mucus right out of their noses.

3. It is known that butterflies drink blood.

4. On your desk, kitchen sink, shopping cart, mobile phone, restaurant menu and ATM machine more bacteria than a toilet.

5. 20 percent of office coffee mugs contain fecal matter.

6. Koalas eat their mother's poo.

7. Fecal matter can pass through 10 layers depending on the type of toilet paper you use.

8. The average person eats about 500 grams of insects per year, mostly along with other food.

9. Your feet will exude about 20 liters of sweat in year.

10. If you sniff something, the molecules of that object attach themselves to the inside of your nose.

11. Your chances of dying on the way to buying lottery tickets higher than your chances of winning the lottery.

13. Most of what we know about hypothermia(hypothermia), we got thanks to Nazi experiments on humans.

14. Male chickens are most often thrown into the crusher, as roosters are not as tasty as chickens.

15. Around 2500 lefties die every year because they use equipment designed for right-handers.

16. Most ice cube storage machines are not washable. They even have a system to prevent the growth of mucus and other microbes.

Amazing Facts

17. Medium a mattress doubles in weight in 10 years due to the accumulation of dust mites and their excrement.

18. If a male lion takes over the pride, he kills all the offspring of the previous head of the pack.

19. About 15 percent of the air we breathe in a metro station is human skin.

To the question Are there butterflies - vampires? given by the author I'll be better the best answer is Finnish scientists have discovered that the vampire butterfly, which has recently spread in Estonia, can drink the blood of humans and animals.

How Vasilistnikov's calyptra (lat. Calyptra thalictri) drinks human blood was first discovered in Russia, in the Far East. Lepidopterologist (butterfly specialist) Vladimir Kononenko, observing the behavior of a butterfly, drew attention to the fact that the calyptra, if no one interferes with it, can suck blood for several minutes.
These butterflies usually drink liquid from the eyes of animals, but it is possible that they can also fly to the smell of blood if, for example, a person gets hurt.
Like most butterflies, the bloodthirsty moth flies to the light and the smell of red wine to which sugar has been added. Calyptra can be a carrier of diseases.
The proboscis of the calyptra has suction cups to attach to the skin. As a rule, the proboscis of butterflies is designed to drink water and plant sap.

In tropical regions, cutworms are found more or less regularly sucking the secretions of the lacrimal glands of large mammals, consuming the amino acids contained in the tears. This butterfly bites very painfully, and drinks blood at a time from five to thirty minutes. An experiment was set up, and it turned out that males can also drink human blood - they pierced the experimenter's finger, the sensation was like a prick with a red-hot needle. Blood drinking for these butterflies became possible due to the fact that their ancestors switched to feeding on dense fruits and developed a hard proboscis.
Some tropical butterflies are bloodsuckers. Their rough proboscis is capable of piercing the skin of mammals. It is believed that at first the butterflies pierced the skin of fruits to drink the juice, and then they got used to drinking blood. In the tropics, butterflies are found that feed on the lacrimal secretions of animals, mainly ungulates, such as buffaloes. These butterflies launch their long proboscises into the tear ducts and suck out the tear secretions.
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Answer from 22 answers[guru]

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: Are there vampire butterflies?

Answer from paleev paleev[guru]
There are butterflies that feed on blood... Vampire Butterflies!

Answer from black-hundredist[guru]
Butterfly specialist at the Estonian Museum of Natural History Aare Lindt told Postimees Online that in Estonia, the calyptra is found mainly in Võru County, in the Nightingale Valley in Rõuge and in Piusa. “A representative of this species was also found in the vicinity of Paide,” he said. “These butterflies usually drink liquid from the eyes of animals, but I do not rule out that they can also fly to the smell of blood if, for example, a person gets hurt.” He loves wine Talking about the ways of catching butterflies, Aare Lindt noticed that blood is not necessary to catch a calyptra. Like most butterflies, the bloodthirsty moth flies to the light and the smell of red wine, to which sugar is added. For seven years, this species has been seen more than a hundred times. According to Lindt, this butterfly was first discovered in Estonia two years later, in 2002. Finnish professor Kauri Mikkola does not believe that the calyptra can be a carrier of diseases. Since the climatic conditions in Finland and Estonia are similar, then we should not be afraid of this either. As an entomologist, I do not believe this nonsense, this scoop was not enough in the Red Book of the Moscow Region !!! !In accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation "On the Protection of the Environment", the Federal Law "On the Fauna", the Decree of the Head of the Administration of the Moscow Region dated 11.06.96 N 257-PG "On the Red Book of the Moscow Region" and the Decree of the Government of the Moscow Region dated 13.02 .97 N 11/4 "On the establishment of the Red Book of the Moscow Region" to approve the list of objects of flora and fauna listed in the Red Book of the Moscow Region (Appendix) .383. Calyptra vasilistnikovaya - Calyptra thalistri (Vorkhausen)

Answer from Grandmaster[guru]
Some tropical butterflies are bloodsuckers. Their rough proboscis is capable of piercing the skin of mammals. It is believed that at first the butterflies pierced the skin of fruits to drink the juice, and then they got used to drinking blood. In the tropics, butterflies are found that feed on the lacrimal secretions of animals, mainly ungulates, such as buffaloes. These butterflies launch their long proboscises into the tear ducts and suck out the tear secretions. This is perhaps the only case when butterflies are carriers of diseases, in this case eye diseases.
Scoops ("little owls") belong to the family Noctuidae - the largest among butterflies: more than 30,000 species. Some scoops suck and drip blood from wounds (scoop Lobocraspis griseifusca), but they themselves are not capable of piercing intact skin.
Authentic blood feeding has been documented in cutworms of the genus Calyptra, which live in Southeast Asia. Calyptra eustrigata is a medium-sized butterfly whose females pierce various fruits and suck out their contents.
Males have the same rigid proboscis as females, but do not feed on fruits. At night, they attack elephants, tapirs, rhinos, buffaloes and pierce the skin, quickly vibrating with their hard, sharp proboscis with teeth at the end - like a jackhammer. This butterfly bites very painfully, and drinks blood at a time from five to thirty minutes. An experiment was set up, and it turned out that males can also drink human blood - they pierced the experimenter's finger, the sensation was like a prick with a red-hot needle. Blood drinking for these butterflies became possible due to the fact that their ancestors switched to feeding on dense fruits and developed a hard proboscis.

Answer from I-beam[active]
Calyptra (lat.) - a genus of butterflies from the Scoop family. For adults of some, mainly tropical, species of this genus, as an exception for the Lepidoptera order, it is known to feed on the blood and lacrimal fluid of mammals.

Butterflies are beautiful and innocent divine creatures, fluttering from flower to flower and drinking nectar. This is how we imagine these insects. But there are also bloodsuckers among them.

At the same time, they use their proboscis, like a mosquito, to drink the blood of warm-blooded animals. And human blood for them is the most pleasant delicacy. And now the not-so-good news is the news: the habitat of these insects is expanding more and more. Previously, they lived only in Malaysia and Southern Europe, but there is a chance that they will soon be near you.

So let's find out more about them...

Some tropical butterflies are bloodsuckers. Their rough proboscis is capable of piercing the skin of mammals. It is believed that at first the butterflies pierced the skin of fruits to drink the juice, and then they got used to drinking blood. In the tropics, butterflies are found that feed on the lacrimal secretions of animals, mainly ungulates, such as buffaloes. These butterflies launch their long proboscises into the tear ducts and suck out the tear secretions. This is perhaps the only case when butterflies are carriers of diseases, in this case eye diseases.

Scoops ("little owls") belong to the family Noctuidae - the largest among butterflies: more than 30,000 species. Some scoops suck and drip blood from wounds (scoop Lobocraspis griseifusca), but they themselves are not capable of piercing intact skin.

Photo 3.

In 2006, Jennifer Zaspel ( Jennifer Zaspel) bitten by a vampire. The vampire was not in a black cloak, with a pale face and long teeth. It was a moth, and it was a real vampire.

Dr. Zaspel is an insect biologist at Indiana State University. On one of her travels, she went to Russia to study the moth " Calyptra thalictri". These insects feed on the juice of certain fruits such as grapes, raspberries and peaches. The moth pierces the skin of the berry and sucks out the sweet juice with its long proboscis. But this moth eats not only juice.

Zaspel caught one specimen of a moth and kept it starving in a plastic bottle for several hours. Then she stuck her thumb down the neck. A few minutes later, the moth settled on the biologist's thumb and pierced the skin at the base of the nail and began to drink human blood.

The Calyptra thalictri moth is just one of many animal vampires. The most famous vampires are ticks, mosquitoes, bedbugs and, of course, bats. Being a bloodsucker is not easy, and animals have to find different ways to choose and attack their victims.

The moth that Zaspel studied is just one of the vampire insects. Some species of the butterfly genus feed on the blood of large mammals - rhinos and elephants, and some prefer the lacrimal fluid of these animals. But not all butterflies, even within the same species, feed on fresh blood.

Scientists who studied these insects caught 16 Calyptra. The chance to suck blood was presented to all 16 butterflies, but only three pierced the skin with their proboscises and began to feed on the blood of scientists. Others did not even make such an attempt.

Photo 4.

Authentic blood feeding has been documented in cutworms of the genus Calyptra, which live in Southeast Asia. Calyptra eustrigata is a medium-sized butterfly whose females pierce various fruits and suck out their contents.

Males have the same rigid proboscis as females, but do not feed on fruits. At night, they attack elephants, tapirs, rhinos, buffaloes and pierce the skin, quickly vibrating with their hard, sharp proboscis with teeth at the end - like a jackhammer. This butterfly bites very painfully, and drinks blood at a time from five to thirty minutes. An experiment was set up, and it turned out that males can also drink human blood - they pierced the experimenter's finger, the sensation was like a prick with a red-hot needle. Blood drinking for these butterflies became possible due to the fact that their ancestors switched to feeding on dense fruits and developed a hard proboscis.

No matter how terrible it sounds, bloodsucking butterflies were found here in Siberia. They turned out to be scoops or night moths. Yes, yes, those very big night moths that flock to the light in the evenings and nights are not averse to tasting human blood.

How Vasilistnikov's calyptra (lat. Calyptra thalictri) drinks human blood was first discovered in Russia, in the Far East. Lepidopterologist (butterfly specialist) Vladimir Kononenko, observing the behavior of a butterfly, drew attention to the fact that the calyptra, if no one interferes with it, can suck blood for several minutes.

These butterflies usually drink liquid from the eyes of animals, but it is possible that they can also fly to the smell of blood if, for example, a person gets hurt. Like most butterflies, the bloodthirsty moth flies to the light and the smell of red wine to which sugar has been added. Calyptra can be a carrier of diseases. The proboscis of the calyptra has suction cups to attach to the skin. As a rule, the proboscis of butterflies is designed to drink water and plant sap.

The length of the butterfly, with a wingspan, is 35-72 millimeters. Their long, hard proboscis is equipped with tiny suction cups to attach to the skin. Initially, it was intended for drinking plant juice and water. Butterflies have adapted to pierce the hard skin of fruits with it. Some tropical species drink tear secretions from large animals instead of blood.

A prick with a proboscis is rather painful. The bite site does not itch, but a small wound can bleed for a long time. If the butterflies are not driven away from the bite, then they can suck blood from 5 to 20 minutes.

Photo 6.

The question arises - why do they still need blood? It's not just that they switched to such an exotic cuisine. There is the following assumption, which, however, has not yet been definitely established. The blood of animals contains salt, which males pass to the female during mating. Such an "unusual sexual gift" provides salt to butterfly larvae. Salt, or rather sodium, they need for normal development.

Photo 7.

A previously unknown population of vampire butterflies has been found and described by scientists in Siberia. Entomologists from the University of Florida (UF) believe that bloodthirsty insects evolved from the usual "fruit-eating" relatives.

Judging by the slight differences in the pattern on the wings, little blood lovers are close relatives of the cornflower cutworm ( Calyptra thalictri), a butterfly common in Central and Southern Europe and some other parts of the world.

During the experiment, scientists donated their hands to butterflies. Insects landed on the palms and fingers, like mosquitoes, plunged their proboscis into human flesh and began to drink blood.

Photo 8.

Pictures of Jennifer at work. The theme of the opening just corresponds to the upcoming holiday - Halloween (photo by UF).

Entomologist Jennifer Zaspel believes that butterflies, which do not yet have an official Latin name, are an "evolutionary offshoot" of scoops. This is the second population discovered by Zaspel and her colleagues in Russia (the previous one was identified in July 2006).

In the future, scientists plan to compare the DNA of individuals of foundlings, as well as other species. This is necessary to more accurately establish their relationship and confirm the hypotheses put forward.

“At the moment, judging by the geographical location of the detected insects, the behavior and color of the wings, we can assume that we have a new species,” says Jennifer.

Photo 9.

If it turns out that in front of entomologists there is indeed a herbivorous butterfly that has retrained into a predator, then this species will allow us to find out exactly how this happened.

Chris Nice, who studies butterflies at the University of Texas (Texas State University), notes that the insect's proboscis was originally designed to pierce the skin of fruit.

The Zaspel group also has a suggestion as to the reason for this non-standard behavior. Scientists believe that everything can be due to the desire to transfer salt to the larvae of butterflies, which is contained in the blood of humans and animals.

Blood is consumed only by male vampire scoops. They probably pass it on to females during mating.

"We found no evidence that vampirism prolongs the life of males, so we thought they were 'gifting' what they got to females," says Jennifer.

Such a "sexual gift" provides salt to the larvae sitting on a leafy diet (and, as you know, there is almost no sodium in the foliage).

Photo 10.

It is not very clear how butterflies of the same species differ so much from each other in terms of food preferences. Perhaps, in some butterflies, the proboscis has evolved in such a way that it became possible to pierce dense tissues, such as animal skin. Scientists studied the structure of the proboscis of all the specimens caught, but did not find serious differences in vampire moths.

The moth Calyptra thalictri is one of the blood-sucking butterflies. Scientists suggest that this way of eating is associated with a partial loss of smell.

Then biologists examined the antennae of Calyptra, and found that there are fewer bloodworms on the antennas of the so-called sensillum that help detect odors. Scientists suggest that in this way blood-sucking insects are not very good at distinguishing the smells of animals. Therefore, they calmly “taste” a motionless finger. In addition, blood is much more nutritious than fruit juice.

Photo 11.

Photo 12.

Photo 14.

Photo 15.