Butterflies and moths are found on all land masses except Antarctica.
Butterflies are further divided into 30 orders, based mainly on their wing structure.
Butterflies belong to, alongside with moths to an order called Lepidoptera.
The main common features of
butterflies are : 6 legs, one pair of antennae, a segmented body in
which three body parts, a head, a thorax and an abdomen can be
distinguished.
Butterflies can recognize the colors red, green, and yellow.
A butterfly has to have a body temperature greater than 86 degrees to be able to fly.
A butterfly's taste sensors are located below their feet.
A caterpillar grows roughly 27,000 times its size when it first emerges as an egg.
A garden caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
Butterflies get their name from the
yellow brimstone butterfly of Europe that is first seen in the early
spring or "butter" season.
Sailor, Dead Leaf, Paper Kite, Blue Striped Crow, Julia and Great Egg Fly are all names of butterflies.
Female Queen Alexandra butterflies,
from Papua and New Guinea, are the largest in the world, some with
wingspans larger than 26 cm.
Monarch butterfly
Monarch caterpillars shed their skin four times before they become a chrysalis, growing over 2700 times their original size.
Night butterflies have ears on their wings so they can avoid bats.
Some leaf-rolling caterpillars fire
faecal pellets from their anuses. "A structure called the anal plate is
loaded with a faecal pellet, and then retracted into the pre-firing
position and held in place by a cuticular catch. The blood pressure in
the anal compartment is then raised by contracting nearby muscles. When
the pressure reaches a sufficient level, the catch gives way and the
anal plate flicks the pellet of sh… Out at a velocity of over 1 m.s-1.!"
Atlas moth
The atlas moth is one of the largest silk moths. It can be mistaken for a medium-sized bat when flying.
The caterpillar of the polyphemus
moth, Antheraea polyphemus, can eat 86,000 times its weight at birth in
little less than two months.
The color in a butterfly's wings does
not come from pigment. The color is produced prism-like by light
reflected by their transparent wing scales.
The fastest flying butterfly is the Monarch, which has been clocked with a speed as high as 17 miles per hour.
The largest butterfly is the Queen
Alexandra's bird wing butterfly from Papua New Guinea. The wingspan of
the butterfly can reach to be almost one foot.
Butterfly- Life cycle
The monarch butterfly can detect its lover's scent eight kilometers away.
The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!
The taste buds of a butterfly are in its feet.
There are over 2,000 species of butterflies in the rain forests of South America.
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