BUTTERFLY

Butterflies are beautiful, flying insects with large scaly wings. Like all insects, they have six jointed legs, 3 body parts, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, and an exoskeleton. The three body parts are the head, thorax (the chest), and abdomen (the tail end). Butterflies belong to the order Lepidoptera. There exist approximately 160,000 different species of butterflies in the world! They are an extremely diverse group when compared with the 2000 species of praying mantids, for example! Butterflies are found worldwide, even above the Arctic Circle, but they do not occur on Antarctic..

The butterfly's body is covered by tiny sensory hairs. The four wings and the six legs of the butterfly are attached to the thorax. The thorax contains the muscles that make the legs and wings move.

FLYING

tiger swallowtail
Swallowtails are strong fliers. Butterflies are very good fliers. They have two pairs of large wings covered with colorful, iridescent scales in overlapping rows. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are the only insects that have scaly wings. The wings are attached to the butterfly's thorax (mid-section). Veins support the delicate wings and nourish them with blood.
Butterflies can only fly if their body temperature is above 86 degrees. Butterflies sun themselves to warm up in cool weather. As butterflies age, the color of the wings fades and the wings become ragged.

The speed varies among butterfly species (the poisonous varieties are slower than non-poisonous varieties). The fastest butterflies (some skippers) can fly at about 30 mile per hour or faster. Slow flying butterflies fly about 5 mph.

LIFE-CYCLE OF A BUTTERFLY

life cycle
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.

DIET

Monarch larva Caterpillars spend most of their time eating leaves using strong mandibles (jaws). A caterpillar's first meal, however, is its own eggshell. A few caterpillars are meat-eaters; the larva of the carnivorous Harvester butterfly eats woolly aphids.

Butterflies and moths can only sip liquid food using a tube-like proboscis, which is a long, flexible "tongue." This proboscis uncoils to sip food, and coils up again into a spiral when not in use. Most butterflies live on nectar from flowers. Some butterflies sip the liquid from rotting fruits and a rare few prefer rotting animal flesh or animal fluids (the Harvester butterfly pierces the bodies of woolly aphids with its sharp proboscis and drinks the body fluids).

HABITAT

Butterflies are found all over the world and in all types of environments: hot and cold, dry and moist, at sea level and high in the mountains. Most butterfly species, however, are found in tropical areas, especially tropical rainforests.

butterflyMany butterflies migrate in order to avoid adverse environmental conditions (like cold weather). Butterfly migration is not well understood. Most migrate relatively short distances (like the Painted Lady, the Red Admiral, and the Common Buckeye), but a few (like some Monarchs) migrate thousands of miles.

CLASSIFICATION

Butterflies and moth belong to the order Lepidoptera. Lepidos is Greek for "scales" and ptera means "wing". These scaled wings are different from the wings of any other insects. Lepidoptera is a very large group; there are more types of butterflies and moths than there are of any other type of insects except beetles. It is estimated that there are about 150,000 different species of butterflies and moths (there may be many more). There are about 28,000 butterfly species worldwide, the rest are moths.

BUTTERFLY FOSSILS

Butterfly fossils are rare. The earliest butterfly fossils are from the early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. Their development is closely linked to the evolution of flowering plants (angiosperms) since both adult butterflies and caterpillars feed on flowering plants, and the adults are important pollinators of many flowering plants. Flowering plants also evolved during the Cretaceous period. 

Most precious creation (BIRDS)

BIRDS are special kind of animal species with certain specific characteristics that are common to all of them. All of them are feathered, winged, bipedal (meaning: having two legs), egg-laying, warm blooded, vertebrate animals belonging to the class Aves. They are an important part of the ecosystem and are present across the globe from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

Birds inhabit the environment that suits them and that is what separates the species found in Polar Regions from those in the Tropical Region. In spite of all the similarities that the bird species share, they have certain unique characteristics which differentiate them from others.Birds may be of different sizes. They could be small as much as 2 inches (e.g. Bee hummingbird) to as big as 2.75 meters (like an Ostrich). Fossil records indicate the emergence of birds to as old as 160 million years ago..

Some birds can fly high and some birds can swim in the water. The duck, the stork and the swan are water birds. Birds like the peacock and cock cannot fly high. Birds like the eagle, the vulture, the kite and the hawk can fly very high in the sky. Some birds cannot fly, penguin is one such species. Bird lays eggs, and hatches the young ones.The cuckoo and the nightingale are singing birds. The parrot can be trained to talk. The owls can see even in darkness. The bats hang from the branches of trees upside down.

Birds are special kind of animal species with certain specific characteristics. Birds inhabit the environment that suits them. Birds are social. They live in flocks, hunt, breed cooperatively and participate in social behaviors.Birds are closely connected with the environment. They are known to be intuitive about weather conditions that may prevail in the region much ahead than humans can predict it with the forecast methods and other instruments. They have the strong power of monitoring and careful examination is also used as an indicator of the weather conditions.

When birds communicate, they use songs and calls. These songs and calls are special to each bird and mean different things. Birds are social animals and like to work together, and they flock together for protection and company. A bird might also use its body to communicate, as seen in special mating dances.

 bird’s beak, or bill, is different depending on the diet of the bird. If a bird is a meat eater, or raptor, such as a bald eagle, they have a sharper curved beak that is used to help tear the meat off the animal they are eating. Birds that live off the water, such as ducks and swans, have flat rounded bills, which help them root around in marshes and soft soil for plants. Birds that eat insects, such as sparrows, have short pointed beaks, which help them pull out bugs from the ground or trees.

The presence of peacock symbolizes rain and good weather while owls, bats and vultures are said to indicate a bad, unpleasant weather in an area. Certain birds are kept near coal mines for the prediction of the mine explosion, as the birds are sensitive to the release of high levels of carbon monoxide beyond permitted limits and begin to die.

It also happens that the prettiest birds are often the worst singers. The birds of Australia, for example, in spite of their gorgeous plumage, have a hoarse, monotonous note. On the other hand, the lark and the cuckoo, with their plain and sober outer appearance, have a marvelous gilt of song. The sweetest singing birds in this country are the the cuckoo and the magpie robin (doyel), while the chief songsters among foreign birds are the lark, the thrush and the nightingale.

One of the commonest birds is the little sparrow. It can only chirp, and therefore does not really possess a song. Quite different is the case of the crow, another coumon bird, having a plumage of dark black color and a voice, which is terribly hoarse and harsh. The pigeon does not sing, but it is a great favorite and is very tame.Birds differ from quadrupeds in having their bodies covered with feathers instead of hair. These feathers are kept in good condition by means of a kind of oil with which lords are supplied. These creatures are often seen peeking at their feathers with their bills. In fact, they supply their feathers with oil when they do this.Birds soothe us with their song and with their merry, lively ways. The world would often be very lonely and melancholy without their music.