Important and interesting information about butterflies. Interesting facts about butterflies. Lemongrass butterfly: interesting facts

The life of butterflies is very short; they are born to die, but have time to give rise to procreation. The lifespan of many of them is several days, the only exception is the Monarch butterfly, which lives up to 6 months.

Often the names of butterflies are given to ancient Greek gods and heroes, this is due to the fact that the Swede Carl Lineus, who was the first to classify animals, had a special relationship with these beauties, he believed that they were so beautiful and bright that they were in no way inferior to mythological heroes. The science of studying butterflies is called lepidopterology.

Butterflies are in second place after bees in pollinating the plant world. Today, about 165 thousand species of butterflies are identified, and every year entomologists discover unknown species.

Butterflies taste food by standing on it because taste sensors are located in their legs.

Some butterflies can sometimes fly at speeds of more than 60 kilometers per hour. The fastest butterflies are representatives of the hawk moth family.

Scientists believe that butterflies appeared about 250 million years ago. And the age of daytime butterflies is about 40 million years. Many of these winged insects, living 30-40 years ago, were similar to modern butterflies.

The largest butterfly on the planet is. It has such a large wingspan (about 30 centimeters) that it is sometimes mistaken for a bird.

In Japan, they believe that if a butterfly flies into your home, it is lucky, since it is a symbol of all the brightest and best things in life. That is why many Japanese holidays and processions open with the “butterfly dance”, which symbolizes the joy of life.

During such a short life, one female lays more than 1000 eggs. That is why Christians depict a butterfly on the hand of little Christ, that is, it symbolizes the resurrection of the soul and rebirth.

Among all 165 thousand butterflies, the smallest is Stigmella ridiculosa, living in the Canary Islands. The length of its body and wingspan do not exceed 2 millimeters.

Some butterflies are included in the Red Book only because they are incredibly beautiful, but in fact they are not endangered. And some of them even cause great harm to agriculture.

Insects and butterflies have a skeleton on the outside of their body called an exoskeleton. It protects the butterfly and prevents moisture from leaving the body so that the insect does not dry out.

Egyptian frescoes in Thebes, which are believed to be more than 3.5 thousand years old, depict butterflies.

Butterflies have an amazing ability to find partners at great distances, given their tiny body size. This distance can reach up to several kilometers.

In addition to tropical species of butterflies, there are also less common arctic butterflies. They are inconspicuous in appearance, they do not have bright colors in color, their wings are whitish and almost transparent, they even seem to be glass. True polar butterflies include several species living on Queen Elizabeth Island, part of Canada, which is located 750 kilometers from the North Pole.

Vladimir Nabokov became the discoverer of 20 species of butterflies. His collection consisted of 4,324 butterfly specimens. Nabokov donated this collection to the Zoological Museum of the University of Lausanne.

Seeing a butterfly in a dream is also considered an excellent sign. In all dream books, this dream means wealth, love and luck.

There are clinics in Stockholm that offer stress relief therapy using butterflies.

If in Europe it is customary to admire the beauty of butterflies, then in India, China and South America these insects are prepared and used as food.

In the Russian language, the word “butterfly” is inextricably linked with the word “baba”; in fact, “butterfly” comes from the word “baba”. In pagan times, it was believed that the soul of a witch moved into a butterfly after death.

The circulatory system of butterflies is quite simple. They do not have a complex network of blood vessels or a heart. All these organs are replaced by a single pulsating dorsal vessel, which is located in the abdomen and looks like a tube stretching to the head.

On Kim Il Sung’s eightieth birthday, the soldiers presented a painting called “The Selfless Faith of a Soldier” and consisted of 4.5 million wings of these beauties.

The title of “rarest butterfly” can be awarded to several species, and one of the largest butterflies is the birdwing or Queen Alexandra’s swallowtail. This butterfly lives in Papua New Guinea. The overly active hunting of birdwings by collectors has led to the fact that this species is now on the verge of extinction.

Yucca is a nocturnal butterfly that lives in the desert. This butterfly is the only insect that pollinates the yucca cactus. The pollination process occurs as follows. A butterfly collects pollen from a cactus in its trunk and carries it to another, attracted by the smell of flowers. When a butterfly arrives, it unmistakably leaves pollen in the place where the seeds will set. Here she lays 3 eggs, and her caterpillars eat the replacement cactus that formed after pollination. The caterpillars eat only a small part of the seeds, and the remaining ones are enough for new plants to appear.

There are also butterflies that eat animal food - these are fire butterflies, and some butterflies can live in an aquatic environment and even under water.

The Death's Head Hawkmoth has an unusual "speech" organ located in the throat. If the hawk moth is in danger or is in an excited state, it may squeak.

There are types of butterflies whose caterpillars eat wool and wax, for example, wax moths and fur and clothes moths. In the tropics of the New and Old Worlds there are butterflies that suck the tears of animals. And some butterflies are not able to eat at all, since they do not have a mouth, and they exist thanks to the energy that was accumulated by the body during the development of the caterpillar. But for the most part, butterflies feed on nectar.

The yucca butterfly has the longest diapause. Adult yucca butterflies from Nevada formed from larvae only after 19 years, during which time scientists observed them in laboratory conditions.

These small creatures have an excellent appetite; some butterflies are able to drink a sugar solution that is twice their own weight.

The butterfly's eyes are very complex: each eye is divided into about 6 thousand tiny parts - lenses.

In 1985, the oldest butterfly was discovered in England, on the Dorset coast - the Archeolepis moth, estimated to be 180 million years old.

The Brazilian calligo butterfly has developed a very original way of protecting itself from numerous enemies - birds and insects. If she is in danger, she turns over and shows the inside of her wings to the enemy. When they see them, the birds immediately fly away, since the wings depict a portrait of the most terrible enemy - an owl with a sharp beak and huge eyes.

Among butterflies, there are also predators as an exception, for example, the butterfly Calyptra eustrigata living from Malaysia to India. These butterflies are blood-sucking; they pierce the animal's skin with a sharp proboscis and drink blood. And the females of these butterflies feed on the juice of plants and fruits.

Lepidoptera were not discovered only in Antarctica.

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Butterflies are airy, weightless creatures familiar to many of us. Beautiful or not, they are all living proof of the amazingness of nature. Being born as caterpillars, they gain wings and fly away, only to later leave offspring in the form of caterpillars. Butterflies are amazing, and the diversity of their species can amaze anyone.

1. The smallest butterfly, acetosia, has a wingspan of only about 2 millimeters. The largest, Tizaniya agrippina, has up to 28 centimeters.
2. Butterflies, like elephants, feed using their trunk. More precisely, the proboscis (see).
3. In total, there are about 165 thousand species of butterflies and moths in the world. Yes, yes, exactly thousands! Moreover, most of them prefer to lead a nocturnal lifestyle.
4. Hawkmoths, night moths, can howl in a wolf-like manner. This howling buzzing mimics that of a queen bee, allowing the hawkmoth to easily enter the beehive and feast on honey, which makes up a fair share of its diet.
5. Butterflies are found on all continents except Antarctica (see).
6. A butterfly's eyes are made up of more than a thousand faceted elements each.
7. The receptors responsible for taste are located on the legs of butterflies.
8. Some species of butterflies lay more than a thousand eggs during their very short lives, from which caterpillars then hatch.
9. Many other species readily feed on butterflies, for example, birds and chameleons (see).
10. The northernmost butterflies live less than a thousand kilometers from the North Pole, on Canada's Queen Elizabeth Island.
11. In China, India and some countries of South America, the population does not hesitate to eat butterflies.
12. Some species of butterflies can reach speeds of over 60 km/h during flight, covering a distance equal to twenty to thirty thousand of their own body lengths in a minute of flight.
13. Most butterflies are afraid of water, but, for example, a lilac moth can calmly emerge if it accidentally falls into the water, shake itself off and fly on.
14. Monarch butterflies understand medicinal plants and know how to use them for medicinal purposes if their offspring need help.
15. Butterflies do not have an organ called a heart.
16. Butterflies distinguish only three colors - red, yellow and green.
17. There are also vampire butterflies that feed in the same way as mosquitoes do - calyptra eustrigata. However, only males feed on blood, while females prefer plant foods.
18. The skeleton of a butterfly, or rather the exoskeleton, is not inside its body, but outside. All internal organs are located inside it.
19. The cabbage butterfly is very prolific. If all the offspring of at least one cabbage tree survived, so many of its descendants would be born in a season that they would weigh three times more than all the people on Earth combined.
20. In China, butterflies are considered a symbol of love and lovers.

Butterflies are incredibly cute and beautiful creatures. The first representatives of these lepidopteran insects found by archaeologists date back to the Jurassic period. Over thousands of years of evolution, many new species have appeared. Some of them are characterized by small sizes, others are quite large and feed not on nectar at all, but on the blood of animals and even people. However, butterflies never cease to amaze scientists with their variety of shapes, colors and habits.

18 facts about butterflies

1. The largest butterfly is Attacus aitas. Its wingspan exceeds 28 cm, which is why the insect is often confused with a small bird.
2. The maximum speed that some species of butterflies reach is 60 km/h.
3. The science that studies lepidopteran insects is lepidopterology.
4. The taste buds of butterflies are located on their paws. To taste food, they need to stand on it and feel with their limbs.
5. The life of butterflies is quite short. They live from one day to a year. During this period, the female lays over a thousand eggs, from which caterpillars hatch, later turning into butterflies.
6. Acetoseias live in England and the Canary Islands. These are the smallest butterflies in the world.
7. The visual organs of insects are designed in such a way that they are able to distinguish only 3 colors - red, yellow and green.
8. Lepidoptera are deaf. They learn about the approach of an enemy by picking up vibrations in the air with their antennae, which help the creature navigate in space.
9. Butterflies are in second place in the ranking of the best pollinating insects, losing first place to bees.
10. In Stockholm hospitals there are rooms in which butterflies fly. Local doctors believe that contemplation and contact with these creatures helps to get rid of stress and restore mental balance.
11. Calyptra eustrigata are the most famous predators from the order Lepidoptera. They feed on the blood of cattle, but during periods of famine they are not afraid to attack people. The bites of Calyptra eustrigata are quite painful, and their venom causes blood poisoning.
12. Butterflies have incredibly large stomachs. The insect is capable of eating food whose weight is 2 times the body weight.
13. The Death's Head (Acherontia atropos) has plates in its throat that vibrate and make a frighteningly loud sound. An insect “screams” only if it is scared.
14. Not all butterflies feed on pollen from growing flowers. For example, the Red Admiral eats manure and rotting vegetables or fruits.
15. Butterflies have many natural enemies. They are most often hunted by birds, lizards, toads and small mammals.
16. Insects are susceptible to mycoses and viral diseases. Many of them are transmitted to humans and cause pathological processes in his body. Therefore, doctors recommend not to come into contact with butterflies on the street, especially if they are large.
17. The variegated coloring of insect wings was not created by nature for beauty. This is a predator deterrent.
18. The Japanese respect butterflies. They consider them a symbol of prosperity. If you kick the creature out of the house, you can become unhappy.

Butterflies are one of the most beautiful creatures. They are associated with spring, beauty, youth. They are a symbol of immortality, happiness, fidelity, love. These mysterious and graceful creatures are a source of poetic inspiration and have become the heroes of many myths and legends. But what do we know about them?

The pollen on the wings of butterflies has nothing in common with the pollen of plants, from whose flowers, as many believe, butterflies collect their bright colors. These are small scales that cover the entire body and wings of the insect. It was they who gave the scientific name to butterflies - lepidoptera (Lepidoptera), one of the largest orders in the class of insects.

Scales are derivatives of hairs, which consist of a transparent chitinous shell with a cavity inside, have a flat, often very diverse, shape and are pressed to the surface of the wing, overlapping each other like tiles.

Wing coloring

The cavity contains a pigment that gives color to the entire scale. And the combination of scales with the same or different pigments makes up a bright, often very complex and contrasting wing pattern. The coloring of wings can be created not only by pigments. In many of our diurnal butterflies, as well as in the brightest representatives of the tropics, it arises due to the interference of light waves. On the surface of the flake there are very small ridges, which, at a certain angle of incidence, reflect light with a certain wavelength.

Butterflies are representatives of the order Lepidoptera of the class Insects of the Arthropod type.

Butterflies as arthropods

As representatives of this type of butterfly, they have:

• segmented body;
• paired jointed limbs;
• chitinous cover.

A covering of chitin protects their body and serves as a support for organs. And the segmented body and legs allow movement with such cover.

Butterflies are like insects

Insects differ from other arthropods in the following features:

• the body consists of 3 sections (head, chest, abdomen);
• have three pairs of legs;
• have two pairs of wings.

On the head of butterflies there are antennae - the organs of smell, compound eyes, palps - the organs of touch.

The chest consists of three large segments, each of them has a pair of legs, and the first and second have a pair of wings.

The abdomen is also made up of segments and on each of them there are a pair of respiratory openings - spiracles.

Butterflies as Lepidoptera

This is a special order of insects, which includes more than 150 thousand species. They differ from other insects in a number of distinctive features:

1. They have two pairs of large wings covered with scales. It is the scales that provide the variety of colors of these insects.
2. Butterflies feed on liquid food, mainly nectar. Therefore, they have a sucking mouthpart in the form of a proboscis.
3. Their development with complete transformation: egg - larva - pupa - imago.
4. The larvae of butterflies are caterpillars
5. Caterpillars have chewing mouthparts and no wings.

Butterflies are diurnal (swallowtail, admiral, urticaria) and nocturnal (hawk moth, bear). They differ in body type - daytime ones are slimmer; type of antennae: in the daytime they are club-shaped, in the nocturnal ones they are feathery; folding wings: day wings fold them vertically, and night wings fold them horizontally.

The largest wings with a span of up to 30 cm are possessed by the tropical butterflies Alexander the birdwing and the Atlas peacockwing, which is called the King of Darkness due to its nocturnal lifestyle.

In South America there is a small butterfly called the glass butterfly. The middle of her wings are completely transparent.

One of the smallest daytime butterflies is our compatriot - the Icarus blueberry. Its wings are no more than 1 cm.