The most amazing facts about butterflies. Butterfly is the most beautiful insect in the world. Interesting facts about butterflies.

Stockholm hospitals are famous for having butterflies to treat stress in patients.

Bees make the biggest contribution to flower pollination, followed by butterflies.

Butterflies have a voracious appetite. Some species of these insects can produce sugar syrup that is twice the insect's body weight.

We love butterflies for the beauty and variety of patterns on their wings. But nature created them to protect them from birds, which love to feast on insects, but cannot always notice a bright insect that looks like a flower.

Without the sun's heat, the flights of most butterflies are impossible.

In the Stone Age, butterflies were the pagan deity of the Great Mother among some tribes.

Butterflies protect their lives from predators through vibration, which they pick up very well.

The cabbage butterfly is a very voracious and prolific butterfly. Most larvae do not survive or are eaten by birds, otherwise total mass these butterflies would be three times the mass of all people living on our planet.

Butterflies have four life cycles. At first, these insects are eggs from which caterpillars emerge. They turn into pupae, from which the butterfly itself flies out. The fourth phase of life, when we see butterflies in flight, is called imago.

Female butterflies live longer than male butterflies of these insects.

The yucca butterfly has the longest diapause. Nevada butterflies take as much as nineteen years to go from larva to butterfly. American scientists were able to observe this entire long journey of transformation into a butterfly in a biological laboratory.

Butterflies can be tiny and huge, variegated and with dull colors, leading a nocturnal or diurnal lifestyle. Despite all these differences, they all have one thing in common - they are all very beautiful!

A number of butterflies are capable of sound communication, and almost all female butterflies release pheromones into the atmosphere for this purpose.

There is such a butterfly as the imperial moth. She has the best among these insects. Males smell a female at a distance of more than eleven kilometers, standing against the wind. Females emit a substance called attractate weighing only one ten-thousandth of a milligram.

The night butterfly Attacus Altas has a wingspan of one third of a meter, so this huge moth often mistaken for birds.

In the tropics of America and Europe there live butterflies that feed on animals, such as turtles. Males of this species consider this a special delicacy. But still, the vast majority of butterflies feed on nectar and juice of herbs containing.

The lifespan of butterflies is very short; they fly for only a few days and die. But among these insects there is a long-liver. The Brixton butterfly has an adult life cycle of about ten months.

In Russia, the most common butterflies are peacocks, especially in the Siberian region of the country. It cannot be confused with other butterflies thanks to unusual design. The top of the wing of this insect is cherry-brown in color, there is a spot in the form of, the lower part of the wing is completely black-brown in color.

A number of butterflies love to eat dung and fruit rot. Such an original gourmet, for example, is the red admiral.

Butterflies have tracheae and tracheoles, as well as air sacs, for breathing. They draw oxygen in through spiracles - openings in the abdomen.

There are butterflies that have accumulated a lot of energy during the caterpillar phase of life, so when they turn into butterflies, they do not feed at all.

The butterfly's exoskeleton protects the insect from drying out. This skeleton is located on the outside of the body, it does not allow moisture to escape from the body.

The blue dwarf is the smallest butterfly in the world. The wingspan of this baby is only 14 millimeters.

The writer V. Nabokov discovered twenty new species of these insects for science. The writer's collection included more than 4,300 dried butterflies different types. In his later years, Nabokov donated this collection to the University of Lausanne, which has a large museum dedicated to the animal world.

A unique gift was made to Kim Il Sung on his 80th birthday. The devoted soldiers of his army presented the leader of the nation with a painting on military theme, made from the wings of four and a half million butterflies.

The Alexandra's swallowtail butterfly is one of the rarest in the world. This large butterfly lives only in Papua New Guinea. Collectors started a hunt for the beautiful insect, so there are very few of these butterflies left in the wildlife of the island.

Butterflies lay their offspring in the same place for a long time.

Butterflies see only three colors: yellow, red and green.

The calligo butterfly lives in Brazil. She has many enemies, and she came up with an original way of protecting herself from predatory insects and birds. Seeing the enemy, she shows the underside of the wings, where an owl with bulging eyes is depicted. The image of this bird is so realistic that the enemies of the calligo quickly fly away, because the owl is an enemy for many of them.

The founder of the world religion, Buddha, addressed butterflies with religious speeches, so adherents of this faith greatly respect these lepidopterans.

The nearsightedness of butterflies is one of the main qualities of these insects, although they have tiny "lenses" for better vision.

Butterflies are airy, weightless creatures familiar to many of us. Beautiful or not so beautiful, I represent them all living proof the wonders 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.

The smallest butterfly, acetosia, has a wingspan of only about 2 millimeters. The largest, Tizaniya agrippina, has up to 28 centimeters.
Butterflies, like elephants, feed using their trunk. More precisely, the proboscis (see).
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 night look life.
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.
Butterflies are found on all continents except Antarctica (see).
A butterfly's eyes are made up of more than a thousand faceted elements each.
The receptors responsible for taste are located on the legs of butterflies.
Some species of butterflies lay more than a thousand eggs during their very short lives, from which caterpillars then hatch.
Many other species willingly feed on butterflies, for example, birds and chameleons (see).
The northernmost butterflies live less than a thousand kilometers from North Pole, on Canada's Queen Elizabeth Island.
In China, India and some countries South America the population does not hesitate to eat butterflies.
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.
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.
Monarch butterflies understand medicinal plants and know how to use them for medical purposes if their offspring need help.
Butterflies do not have an organ called a heart.
Butterflies distinguish only three colors - red, yellow and green.
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.
The skeleton of a butterfly, or rather the exoskeleton, is not inside its body, but outside. All internal organs are inside it.
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.
In China, butterflies are considered a symbol of love and lovers.

The butterfly belongs to the class insects, phylum arthropods, order Lepidoptera.

The Russian name “butterfly” comes from the Old Slavonic word “babъka”, which denoted the concept of “old woman” or “grandmother”. In the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, it was believed that these were the souls of the dead, so people treated them with respect.

Butterfly: description and photo. The structure and appearance of butterflies

The structure of the butterfly has two main sections - the body, protected by a hard chitinous shell, and the wings.

A butterfly is an insect whose body consists of:

Head, inactively connected to the chest. The butterfly's head has a round shape with a slightly flattened occipital part. The round or oval convex eyes of the butterfly in the form of hemispheres, occupying most of the lateral surface of the head, have a complex facet structure. Butterflies have color vision and perceive moving objects better than stationary ones. In many species, additional simple parietal eyes are located behind the antennae. The structure of the oral apparatus depends on the species and can be of the sucking or gnawing type.

Breasts with a three-segment structure. The front part is significantly smaller than the middle and back part, where three pairs of legs are located, which have a structure characteristic of insects. On the shins of the butterfly's front legs there are spurs designed to maintain the hygiene of the antennae.
The abdomen has the shape of an elongated cylinder, consisting of ten ring-shaped segments with spiracles located on them.

Butterfly structure

The antennae of the butterfly are located on the border of the parietal and frontal parts of the head. They help butterflies navigate their surroundings by sensing air vibrations and various odors.

The length and structure of the antennae depend on the species.

Two pairs of butterfly wings, covered with flat scales of different shapes, have a membranous structure and are penetrated by transverse and longitudinal veins. The size of the hind wings can be the same as the front wings or significantly smaller than them. The pattern of butterfly wings varies from species to species and captivates with its beauty.

In macro photography, the scales on the wings of butterflies are very clearly visible - they can have completely different shapes and color.

Butterfly wings - macro photography

The appearance and coloring of a butterfly’s wings serve not only for intraspecific sexual recognition, but also act as a protective camouflage that allows it to blend into its surroundings. Therefore, colors can be either monochrome or variegated with a complex pattern.

The size of a butterfly, or better said, the wingspan of a butterfly, can range from 2 mm to 31 cm.

Classification and types of butterflies

The large order of Lepidoptera includes more than 158 thousand representatives. There are several systems for classifying butterflies, quite complex and confusing, with constant changes occurring in them. The most successful scheme is considered to be one that divides this detachment into four suborders:

1) Primary toothed moths. These are small butterflies, the wingspan of which ranges from 4 to 15 mm, with a gnawing type mouthparts and antennae that reach a length of up to 75% of the size of the front wings. The family consists of 160 species of butterflies.

Typical representatives are:

golden smallwing ( Micropteryx calthella);
marigold smallwing ( Micropteryx calthella).

2) Proboscis butterflies. The wingspan of these insects, covered with dark small scales with cream or black spots, does not exceed 25 mm. Until 1967, they were classified as primary toothed moths, with which this family has much in common.

The most famous butterflies from this suborder:

flour moth ( Asopia farinalis L.),
spruce cone moth ( Dioryctrica abieteila).

3) Heterobathmyas, represented by one family Heterobathmiidae.

4) Proboscis butterflies, which make up the largest suborder, consisting of several dozen families, which include more than 150 thousand species of butterflies. Appearance and the sizes of representatives of this suborder are very diverse. Below are several families demonstrating the diversity of proboscis butterflies.

Family Sailboats, represented by medium and large butterflies with a wingspan from 50 to 280 mm. The pattern on the wings of butterflies consists of black, red or blue spots various shapes, clearly visible on a white or yellow background. The most famous of them are:
1. Swallowtail butterfly;
2. Sailboat "Glory of Bhutan";
3. Queen Alexandra's Birdwing and others.

Swallowtail butterfly

Family Nymphalidae, characteristic feature which is the absence of thickened veins on wide, angular wings with variegated colors and various patterns. The wingspan of butterflies varies from 50 to 130 mm. Representatives of this family are:
1. Butterfly Admiral;
2. Day peacock butterfly;
3. Butterfly hives;
4. Mourning butterfly, etc.

Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta)

Day peacock butterfly

Urticaria butterfly (Aglais urticae)

There are species of butterflies that do not have a mouthparts: to maintain life, they use up those reserves nutrients, which were accumulated in the caterpillar stage.

Such butterflies include the Madagascar comet, whose wingspan is 14-16 cm. The lifespan of this butterfly is 2-3 days.

There are also “vampires” among butterflies. For example, males of some cutworm species maintain their strength thanks to the blood and tear fluid of animals.

This is the vampire butterfly (lat. Calyptra).

Stages of butterfly reproduction. Transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly

Most butterflies have complex forms of courtship during mating season, expressed in flying and dancing. The mating process, during which the female receives from the male, in addition to sperm, a supply of necessary microelements and proteins, sometimes drags on for several hours.

Caterpillar turns into butterfly

The life cycle of a butterfly consists of 4 phases (stages):

Eggs

The life of a butterfly begins with an egg. Depending on the species and tribal affiliation the butterfly lays eggs on leaves or branches of plants. This can be up to 1000 fertilized eggs that are round, cylindrical or egg-shaped. The color of the eggs can be white, greenish, yellow, red, sometimes with a pattern. This stage of the butterfly’s life lasts between 8-15 days.

Butterfly eggs

Caterpillar (larva)

At this stage, the insect has a worm-like shape. Oral apparatus in caterpillars of the gnawing type. A special feature of the caterpillar is the presence of special glands that produce a substance that quickly hardens upon contact with air and forms something like a strong silk thread. Butterfly caterpillars feed mainly on plant foods: fruits, flowers and leaves of plants. However, there are caterpillars whose diet consists of wool, horny substances and even wax.

Caterpillar

doll

Depending on the species, the pupa may have an elongated cylindrical or even round shape. A plain cocoon sometimes has a pattern formed by stripes, dots and spots. At this stage of development, the butterfly already has rudimentary wings, a proboscis and legs.

Imago (adult, butterfly)

Depending on the species, the lifespan of a butterfly can range from several hours to 10 months. The adult is already capable of reproduction and dispersal, which are its main functions.

What do butterflies do in winter?

It is noteworthy that butterflies winter in different ways. There are species of butterflies that, having left the pupa, live only during the summer and die with the onset of cold weather. Some wait out the winter in the egg stage, but most do so as pupa. There are species that meet the cold as adult insects and hide from them in tree hollows or deep cracks in the bark. These are urticaria, burdock and lemongrass.

Lemongrass butterfly

But there are also exceptions to the rules.

Some representatives of lepidoptera prefer to leave their habitats without waiting for the onset of unfavorable conditions. They just fly to more warm regions. The most famous "travelers" are the oleander hawk moth and the monarch.

The benefits and harms of butterflies

It is noteworthy that butterflies bring both great benefit and harm to agriculture. In the caterpillar stage, they destroy leaves on fruit trees, which leads to loss of yield. At the same time, adult butterflies help cross-pollinate and self-pollinate plants. Both caterpillars and adults serve as food for many birds. And about the benefits silkworm and there is no need to say - this is a manufacturer of natural silk.

The Saturnia butterfly's caterpillar is so poisonous that the toxins it produces can kill humans.
The migratory monarch butterfly is capable of covering up to 1000 km in one flight without stopping to rest.
Butterflies do not sleep at night because they do not need sleep.
During the flight to short distances Hawkmoths can reach speeds of up to 60 km/h.
The baby moth is the smallest butterfly with wings measuring 2 mm.
Madagascar hawk moths have the most long proboscis, whose length is 28 cm.
The size of the wings of the butterfly Tisania agrippina reaches 31 cm.
The peacock butterfly's sense of smell is very developed: it can smell it at a distance of 10 km.

Butterflies are incredibly cute and beautiful creatures. The first representatives of these lepidopteran insects found by archaeologists belong to 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

The largest butterfly is Attacus aitas. Its wingspan exceeds 28 cm, which is why the insect is often confused with a small bird.
The maximum speed that some species of butterflies reach is 60 km/h.
The science that studies lepidopteran insects is lepidopterology.
The taste buds of butterflies are located on their paws. To taste food, they need to stand on it and feel with their limbs.
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.
In England and Canary Islands Acetoseia live. These are the smallest butterflies in the world.
The visual organs of insects are designed in such a way that they are able to distinguish only 3 colors - red, yellow and green.
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.
Butterflies are in second place in the ranking of the best pollinating insects, losing first place to bees.
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.
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.
Butterflies have incredibly large stomachs. The insect is capable of eating food whose weight is 2 times the body weight.
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.
Not all butterflies feed on pollen from growing flowers. For example, the Red Admiral eats manure and rotting vegetables or fruits.
Butterflies have many natural enemies. They are most often hunted by birds, lizards, toads and small mammals.
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.
The variegated coloring of insect wings was not created by nature for beauty. This is a predator deterrent.
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 well-known insects that attract especially great attention, since many species are large in size, bright, beautiful in color and are often found in forests, gardens, meadows and clearings. There are 8,000 species of butterflies in the CIS.

The scientific name of the order - Lepidoptera - is based on the most important feature of these insects: the large wings of butterflies are covered with tiny scales. These scales are brightly colored, located on the wings in a strict order and form a wing pattern. From this picture it is easy to determine the type of butterfly. Under the scales, the wings of all butterflies are the same: they are a transparent or whitish thin plate, reinforced by a peculiar frame consisting of thicker, darker and more elastic veins. The veins form a pattern of cells. The different groups of butterflies differ well in the length and direction of the veins and the shape of the cells. These features are used in more complete determinants.

Another important characteristic of butterflies is the development of the so-called proboscis in many species. This is a thin long tube that arises from the mouthparts, with the help of which butterflies feed on the nectar of flowers, and some on the flowing tree sap. The proboscis in most species is spirally twisted. Those butterflies that do not feed do not have a proboscis.

The antennae of butterflies are very diverse. Large group butterflies have thin long antennae with a club-shaped extension at the very end. These butterflies are diurnal and are called club-whiskered or diurnal butterflies.

Another group of butterflies leads a crepuscular and nocturnal lifestyle. They are called moths. The structure of the antennae of moths is very diverse; most species have filamentous or feathery antennae. In males, the antennae often have more complex structure than in females.

Daytime butterflies fly slowly and flutter, while nocturnal species are often distinguished by very fast flight.

Butterflies have large bulging eyes on their heads. The thoracic region of these insects is very well developed - it contains strong flight muscles. The abdomen is elongated; in females it is often very thick, as it accommodates large number eggs Butterflies have 3 pairs of well-developed legs, but in some species the front legs are shortened.

Butterflies are found in nature throughout the warm season. In early spring, overwintered specimens begin to fly. From eggs laid by females in late autumn, young caterpillars emerge in spring.

Caterpillars are the larvae of butterflies. The fleshy body of caterpillars is naked or covered with hair. The head is large, with gnawing mouthparts. Caterpillars are notable for the fact that, in addition to short thoracic legs, they also have tenacious abdominal legs. These legs are unusual; they are muscular outgrowths of the body, equipped with a tenacious sole set with hooks. The abdominal legs of caterpillars are called false legs to emphasize their difference from the true, thoracic legs. However, it is the abdominal legs that are adapted for climbing plants on which the caterpillars of most species of butterflies develop.

Caterpillars are herbivorous, with only a few predating or eating grain, wax, wool, or woolen products (such as some moths). Having reached maturity, caterpillars weave a cocoon for pupation or pupate without a cocoon - under the bark, in various shelters, in upper layers soil or openly on plants, fences, walls of buildings, etc. Butterflies usually emerge from pupae after 2-3 weeks.

The importance of butterflies in nature, agriculture and forestry is very great. Some species of butterflies are capable of reproducing in huge numbers. During these periods, they destroy the foliage and needles of trees, damaging tens and hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest, cause damage to gardening, especially fruit trees, destroy the results of the work of vegetable growers, attacking cabbage and root crops, etc. Among the butterflies there are also useful species. They are bred, for example, to obtain silk from cocoons.