Butterfly ( Rhopalocera )

RHOPALOCERA

Butterflies are an insect that live anywhere from 2 days to as long as 11 months. They go through a four-step process called metamorphosis – from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis to a butterfly.

Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. These wings allow them to fly but only when their body temperature is above 86 degrees. The fastest butterflies can fly up to 30 miles per hour.

           Butterflies’ wings are colorful for many reasons. The colors help them attract a mate and absorb heat and the color also helps them blend in among the flowers when they are feeding.As in all insects, the body is divided into three sections: the head, thorax, and abdomen.

The thorax is composed of three segments, each with a pair of legs. Butterflies use their antennae to sense the air for wind and scents.

The antennae come in various shapes and colours; the hesperiids have a pointed angle or hook to the antennae, while most other families show knobbed antenena.

LIFE-CYCLE OF A BUTTERFLY

Butterflies and moths undergo complete metamorphosis in which they go through four different life stages.

Egg - A butterfly starts its life as an egg, often laid on a leaf.

Larva - The larva (caterpillar) hatches from an egg and eats leaves or flowers almost constantly. The caterpillar molts (loses its old skin) many times as it grows. The caterpillar will increase up to several thousand times in size before pupating.

Pupa - It turns into a pupa (chrysalis); this is a resting stage.

Adult - A beautiful, flying adult emerges. This adult will continue the cycle.

Taxonomic Classification

• Kingdom : Animalia
• Phylum : Arthropoda
• Class : Insecta
• Order : Lepidoptera
• Suborder : Rhopalocera
• Family : Lycaenidae
• Genus : Polyommatus

10 FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT BUTTERFLY

1. Butterfly wings are transparent.

How can that be? We know butterflies as perhaps the most colorful, vibrant insects around! A butterfly's wings are covered by thousands of tiny scales, and these scales reflect light in different colors.But underneath all of those scales, a butterfly wing is actually formed by layers of chitin, the same protein that makes up an insect's exoskeleton. These layers are so thin you can see right through them. As a butterfly ages, scales fall off the wings, leaving spots of transparency where the chitin layer is exposed.

2. Butterflies taste with their feet.

Butterflies have taste receptors on their feet to help them find their host plants and locate food. A female butterfly lands on different plants, drumming the leaves with her feet until the plant release its juices. Spines on the back of her legs have chemoreceptors that detect the right match of plant chemicals. When she identified the right plant, she lays her eggs. A butterfly will also step on its food, using organs that sense dissolved sugars to taste food sources like fermenting fruit.

3. Butterflies live on an all-liquid diet.

Speaking of butterflies eating, adult butterflies can only feed on liquids, usually nectar.

Their mouthparts are modified to enable them to drink, but they can't chew solids. A proboscis, which functions as a drinking straw, stays curled up under the butterfly's chin until it finds a source of nectar or other liquid nutrition. It then unfurls the long, tubular structure and sips up a meal.

4. A butterfly must assemble its proboscis as soon as it emerges from the chrysalis.

A butterfly that can't drink nectar is doomed. One of its first jobs as an adult butterfly is to assemble its mouthparts. When a new adult emerges from the pupal case, or chrysalis, its mouth is in two pieces. Using palpi located adjacent to the proboscis, the butterfly begins working the two parts together to form a single, tubular proboscis. You may see a newly emerged butterfly curling and uncurling the proboscis over and over, testing it out.

5. Butterflies drink from mud puddles.

A butterfly cannot live on sugar alone; it needs minerals, too. To supplement its diet of nectar, a butterfly will occasionally sip from mud puddles, which are rich in minerals and salts. This behavior, called puddling, occurs more often in male butterflies, which incorporate the minerals into their sperm. These nutrients are then transferred to the female during mating, and help improve the viability of her eggs.

6. Butterflies can't fly if they're cold.

Butterflies need an ideal body temperature of about 85ºF to fly.

7. A newly emerged butterfly can't fly.

Inside the chrysalis, a developing butterfly waits to emerge with its wings collapsed around its body. When it finally breaks free of the pupal case, it greets the world with tiny, shriveled wings.

The butterfly must immediately pump body fluid through its wing veins to expand them. Once its wings reach full-size, the butterfly must rest for a few hours to allow its body to dry and harden before it can take its first flight.

8. Butterflies live just a few weeks, usually.

Once it emerges from its chrysalis as an adult, a butterfly has only 2-4 short weeks to live, in most cases. During that time, it focuses all its energy on two tasks – eating and mating. Some of the smallest butterflies, the blues, may only survive a few days. Butterflies that overwinter as adults, like monarchs and mourning cloaks, can live as long as 9 months.

9. Butterflies are nearsighted, but they can see and discriminate a lot of colors.

Within about 10-12 feet, butterfly eyesight is quite good. Anything beyond that distance gets a little blurry to a butterfly, though. Butterflies rely on their eyesight for vital tasks, like finding mates of the same species, and finding flowers on which to feed. In addition to seeing some of the colors we can see, butterflies can see a range of ultraviolet colors invisible to the human eye. The butterflies themselves may have ultraviolet markings on their wings to help them identify one another and locate potential mates. Flowers, too, display ultraviolet markings that act as traffic signals to incoming pollinators like butterflies – "pollinate me!"

10. Butterflies employ all kinds of tricks to keep from being eaten.

Butterflies rank pretty low on the food chain, with lots of hungry predators happy to make a meal of them.

Some butterflies fold their wings to blend in to the background, using camouflage to render themselves all but invisible to predators. Others try the opposite strategy, wearing vibrant colors and patterns that boldly announce their presence. Bright colored insects often pack a toxic punch if eaten, so predators learn to avoid them. Some butterflies aren't toxic at all, but pattern themselves after other species known for their toxicity. By mimicking their foul-tasting cousins, they repel predators.