Description about a butterfly for children. Amazing facts about butterflies. What do butterflies eat?

A story about a butterfly for children will help you prepare for the lesson and learn a lot of useful information.

A story about a butterfly for children

Butterflies are one of the most beautiful insects, they look like real flowers, the whimsicality and brightness of the color of their wings is fabulous. For their beauty, people gave butterflies beautiful names: Machaon, Admiral, Apollo, Dawn, Limonnitsa, etc. Butterflies fly during the day, and at night, raising their wings, they rest.

Butterflies are insects with complete metamorphosis, since the larva (caterpillar) is completely different from the adult. Their life cycle consists of 4 stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa and adult insect.

Like all arthropods, the body of butterflies is divided into many segments and covered with a chitinous shell - cuticle, and the legs consist of individual segments. Each butterfly has three pairs of such segmented legs.

Of all the insects, only butterflies have four large and bright wings with a magnificent graphic pattern. They have well-developed senses, but in many ways they perceive the world differently than humans.

The eyes occupy most of the head and consist of many facets, each of which is a miniature eye. Hearing is very well developed, they hear ultrasound and often suffer from it. The olfactory organs reach fantastic acuteness. The sense of taste is also well developed; they taste food with their paws and trunk, and they recognize the taste of sugar in solutions in the smallest concentrations. The taste organs for sweets are 2 thousand times greater than the human taste organs!

Among butterflies there are species whose caterpillars, during the period of mass reproduction, can devastate gardens and orchards or deplete many hectares of forest. However, there are few butterflies that cause significant harm to humans.

Half of the list of insects listed in the Red Book are butterflies. They are suffering from habitat loss. Excessive catching and collecting is also the reason for their decline.

What do butterflies eat?

Some butterflies feed on the nectar of flowers, others on tree sap and fermented fruit juice, while others do not mind snacking on animal droppings and tears, as well as dirt, in order to compensate for the lack of mineral salts after mating.

Interesting fact! Where butterflies live, the air is environmentally friendly, and where they are not, many environmental problems arise in the environment.

2. Peru and one Indian state, Sikkim, are considered to be the richest in the diversity of lepidopteran species.

3. Lepidoptera were not discovered only in Antarctica.

4. Currently, there are about 165 thousand species of butterflies. Moreover, most of them prefer to lead a nocturnal lifestyle. Every year entomologists discover unknown species of them.

5. Butterflies are small and large, colorful and dull, day and night, but they are all beautiful.

Monarch butterfly.

6. The hardiest butterfly in the world is the Monarch. She can cover a distance of a thousand kilometers without stopping.

7. Butterflies are ancient creatures. Their images are present on Egyptian frescoes in Thebes, which are supposedly more than 3.5 thousand years old.

8. In 1985, the oldest butterfly, the Archeolepis moth, was discovered in England, on the Dorset coast; it is believed to be 180 million years old.

9. The usual habitat of butterflies is the tropics, but there are also arctic butterflies. They are inconspicuous in appearance, their wings are not bright, but whitish or almost transparent, as if made of glass.

10. Butterflies that live on Queen Elizabeth Island - Canada - 750 kilometers from the North Pole can be called real polar explorers.

Peacock Butterfly

11. The most common butterfly in Russia and Siberia is the Peacock eye. Thanks to its original pattern, it is difficult to confuse it with any other: the upper part of the wing has a cherry-brown color and an eye-shaped spot characteristic of this species, while the lower part is completely black-brown.

12. Butterflies are crepuscular creatures. Only some representatives of this group of insects are diurnal.

13. Butterflies take second place after bees in pollinating the plant world.

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

15. Butterflies are one of the most common collecting objects among the most famous people in the world, such as: Nabokov, Rothschild, Bulgakov, Mavrodi.

16. 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.

17. Kim Il Sung received an interesting gift for his 80th birthday. His soldiers and officers presented the painting “The Selfless Faith of a Soldier,” which was made from 4.5 million butterfly wings.

18. Butterflies taste food by standing on it. This is because their taste sensors are located in their feet.

19. Butterflies weigh about the same as two rose petals.

20. Butterflies can't hear, but they can sense vibration, which works better when they need to hide from predators.

Hawk Moth Death's Head

21. The Death's Head Hawk Moth 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.

22. Hawk moths, night moths, can howl like a wolf. 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.

23. In the Paleolithic era, the butterfly was one of the insects that represented the goddess “Great Mother”.

24. The cabbage butterfly is a frequent visitor to vegetable gardens. 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.

25. The life cycle of these creatures consists of four phases: egg, caterpillar, pupa and adult (butterfly).

The largest moth in the world - Attacus Altas

26. The largest moth in the world is Attacus Altas. Its wingspan is more than 30 cm, so it is often mistaken for a bird.

27. In the tropical forests of the New and Old Worlds, there is a species of butterfly whose males feed on animal tears. But butterflies mainly feed on nectar and other plant secretions containing sugar.

Queen Alexandra's swallowtail butterfly

28. There is more than one species of these insects in the world, which can rightfully be considered the rarest. One of them is Queen Alexandra's swallowtail, the largest butterfly on the planet. It can only be found in Papua New Guinea and thanks to collectors, this species is on the verge of complete extinction.

29. Butterflies are myopic. Although the most complex organ of these amazing creatures is the eyes. They are made up of 6,000 tiny parts called lenses.

30. Butterflies can see red, green and yellow.

Moth Yucca

31. Yucca is a nocturnal butterfly that lives in the desert. This butterfly is the only insect that pollinates the yucca cactus.

32. 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.

33. There are clinics in Stockholm that provide stress therapy with the help of butterflies.

34. The most amazing thing about these creatures is that butterflies need the sun's heat in order to fly.

35. Most butterflies have quite beautiful and varied patterns on their wings. These patterns are designed for camouflage so that predators such as birds cannot figure out where the butterflies are hiding.

36. Female butterflies usually live longer than male butterflies.

37. In general, most butterflies have a short life - only a few days. However, there are specimens with a rather long life cycle: the Brixton butterfly is a long-liver, its cycle lasts up to 10 months.

38. Some butterflies communicate with each other using sound, but most female butterflies release pheromones into the air.

39. The imperial moth has the most acute sense of smell, the males of which can smell the female at a distance of more than 11 km against the wind(!) Scientists have found that the smell is produced by a special substance - attractate, which is secreted by the female in a very small amount = 0.0001 mg.

40. Butterflies breathe through a complex structure of tubes (called tracheae and tracheoles) and air sacs. Oxygen is drawn into the body through openings in their abdomen called spiracles.

Blue Dwarf Butterfly

41. The smallest butterfly in the world is considered to be the “Blue Dwarf”, whose wingspan is only 1.4 centimeters.

42. Some butterflies never eat because they do not have a mouth. They live on the energy they have stored in the form of caterpillars.

Brazilian Calligo butterfly

43. 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.

44. Butterflies lay their offspring in one place for many years in a row.

45. Buddhists respect butterflies, because it was to the butterfly that Buddha addressed his sermon.

Butterfly Red Admiral

46. ​​Some butterfly species, like the Red Admiral, prefer to feed on rotting fruit and dung.

47.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.

Butterfly Lilac moth

48. 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.

49. Monarch butterflies understand medicinal plants and know how to use them for medicinal purposes if their offspring need help.

50. In Japan they believe that meeting a butterfly at home is good luck. In a Japanese wedding ceremony, two paper butterflies are required; it is believed that they will bring happiness to the newlyweds.

The report on butterflies presented in this article will tell you about insects that were revered in the old days because they were believed to be the souls of the dead.

Message about butterflies

Appearance and structure of butterflies

In the structure of this insect there are 2 main sections: the body, which is protected by a chitinous hard shell, and the wings.

In turn, the body consists of:

• Heads. It is inactive and connected to the chest. Butterflies have a round head, and the back of the head is slightly flattened. Oval or round convex eyes have the appearance of hemispheres and occupy almost the entire lateral part of the surface of the head. The eyes are characterized by a complex facet structure. It is worth noting that these insects have color vision, and they perceive moving objects better than stationary ones. Some species have additional parietal simple eyes that are located behind the antennae. The structure of the oral apparatus can be of the gnawing sucking type, it all depends on the species.
• Breasts. They have a three-segment structure. The anterior thoracic part is smaller than the middle and posterior parts. It contains 3 pairs of legs with a characteristic structure: there are spurs on the legs that help maintain the hygiene of the antennae.
• Abdominals. They consist of 10 segments, ring-shaped with spiracles. The abdomen of butterflies themselves has the shape of a long cylinder.
• Usikov. In butterflies they are located on the border of the frontal and parietal parts of the head. Thanks to their antennae, insects can navigate their natural environment by perceiving various odors and air vibrations. The structure and their length depend on what species the butterflies belong to.
• Krylyev. These lepidopteran animals have 2 pairs of wings, which are covered with flat scales and are also characterized by a membranous structure with longitudinal and transverse veins. What is distinctive is that butterflies have beautiful patterns on their wings.

Types and classification of butterflies

There are more than 158,000 representatives in the Lepidoptera order. There are several qualifications, but the following is considered the most successful (it divides the squad into 4 subgroups):

• Primary toothed moths. These include small butterflies. Their wingspan ranges from 4 to 15 mm. The mouthparts are gnawing type. This family includes 160 species. The most common representatives: marigold smallwing and golden smallwing.
• Proboscis butterflies. The wingspan is no more than 25 mm and they are covered with small dark scales with black or cream spots. The most common representatives are the fir cone moth and the flour moth.
• Heterobathmya. They are represented by only one family - Heterobathmiidae.
• Proboscis butterflies. This large family includes more than 150,000 species of butterflies. The most famous proboscis butterflies are: swallowtail, "Glory of Bhutan", Queen Alexandra's birdwing, admiral, wren, peacock's eye

Where do butterflies live?

Butterflies are distributed throughout the globe, except Antarctica. The largest concentrations of insects are in India and Peru.

What do butterflies eat?

They mainly feed on pollen and nectar of flowering plants. Most species consume tree sap, rotting and overripe fruit. But some species, for example, nymphalids, need various microelements and additional moisture. To do this, they drink the urine, sweat and tears of crocodiles.

Reproduction and life cycle of butterflies

During the courtship period, butterflies express their mating intentions through flight and dancing. From the male, in addition to sperm, the female also receives a supply of proteins and microelements. The life cycle of insects includes 4 stages:

• Egg. The stage lasts 8-15 days.
• Caterpillar. The butterfly at this stage has the shape of a worm.
• Doll. It comes in cylindrical or round shape.
• Transformation into a butterfly. The lifespan of an insect ranges from a couple of hours to 10 months.

With the arrival of winter, some butterflies die, while other species survive the cold in the egg stage. But there are insects that overwinter in hollows or cracks in the bark.

• The Saturnia butterfly, which is in the caterpillar stage, can kill a person with its poison.
• They don't sleep.
• The peacock butterfly can smell up to 10 km away.
• The smallest butterfly is the little moth. Its wingspan is 2 mm.
• The Madagascan hawk moth has the longest proboscis. Its length is 28 cm.

We hope that the report on butterflies helped you learn a lot of interesting information about these insects. You can leave your message about butterflies using the comment form below.

Butterflies are stunning creatures of heavenly beauty, true decorations of nature. You can watch them flutter and spin endlessly. The appearance of these insects is fascinating. A lot of interesting things happen in their daily lives, many facts are very interesting and unusual.

The smallest butterflies on the planet

There are two types - acetosea and rediculosis. They are so small that you can simply not notice them. The wingspan of these babies is only 2 mm.

The largest butterflies in the world

The largest insect is the atlas peacock eye. This butterfly resembles a bird, as its wingspan is as much as 24 cm.

Survive among ice and frost

Apollo is the only lepidopteran insect that can survive in low temperatures calmly and without much damage to itself.

This butterfly can be found in places where the area is constantly covered with snow and covered with ice.

Bloodsucking butterflies

There are butterflies that, like mosquitoes, are able to drink human blood. These are cutworms - a very rare species (they are also called vampires). If in mosquitoes the bloodsuckers are females, here, on the contrary, only males bite.

Delicacy

Asian countries differ from other countries in the world in that it is considered the norm to use insects, pupae and caterpillars for food. And butterflies were no exception. Here it is an incredible and rare delicacy that requires special skills and skill in preparation.

Nutritional Features

Many are deeply convinced that all butterflies, without exception, feed on nectar. This is far from true. It turns out that there are some varieties of these insects that prefer fruits that have begun to spoil, for example, the red admiral.

Others believe that there is nothing tastier than manure. And still others do not eat anything at all, using for flight and living the energy that they managed to accumulate while in the form of a caterpillar and pupa.

Symbols

In Japan, butterflies are considered symbols of family happiness and longevity. It is customary to give these origami insects as a random gift for a wedding.

But in Italy, butterflies are considered symbols of impending troubles, wars, devastation and hunger.

Water lovers

In general, butterflies hate water. The thing is that as soon as these beauties get their wings wet, they run the risk of never flying again.

But there is an exception - this is the lilac moth. She has the unique ability to submerge completely in water and emerge completely dry.

Features of vision

If you examine the eyes of butterflies at high magnification, you can see that they consist of several hundred lenses, all of which are very similar to honeycombs. These insects come in several colors: red, yellow and green.

Deafness

Butterflies do not distinguish sounds at all. And the question arises, how then do they manage to recognize the danger and fly away and hide in time. The fact is that insects are guided by vibration, which is why they quickly recognize the approach of an enemy.

It turns out that butterflies can amaze not only with their amazing appearance and beauty, but also with behavioral features that are truly unique and unusual.

Butterflies are amazing creatures that people have admired for centuries. They are favorite characters in poetry, artists are happy to place them in their landscapes, and for couples in love there is no greater romance than watching the graceful flight of these insects. It seems that people know everything about them, but in fact there are a huge number of unknown and amazing facts about them, learning which, you can appreciate these fragile creatures in a new way.

There are specialists who have chosen to study these insects. Such scientists are called lepidopterologists, and the science they practice is called lepidopterology. They can tell you a huge number of interesting facts about these amazing insects.

People are accustomed to perceiving butterflies as a separate species, forgetting that in this form these creatures live only a small part of their lives. The complete cycle from birth to death of lepidoptera is a unique phenomenon in biology, which has fascinated people since the very moment it was discovered.

There are four stages in their life cycle: egg, larva, pupa and imago - adult. Eggs are very fragile, so there are a lot of mechanisms designed to protect them. Firstly, moths lay eggs in places hidden from prying eyes, trying to disguise the clutches as elements of the environment. Secondly, mothers most often try to lay eggs in groups in different places: if one portion suffers, the other will have a chance of survival.

The second stage is the larval stage. The amazing fact is that with the same force with which people admire butterflies, they hate caterpillars - in fact, the children of these insects. The caterpillar is a special stage, which is designed by nature to store nutrients, that is, its main task is food, and it is engaged in eating throughout its existence until the outer boundaries of the body become too tight. From this moment, molting begins, the number of which depends on the species. During the last moult, the caterpillar becomes a pupa.

Pupae are capsules that cannot move in space, except for small twitches. From the outside, it seems that nothing is happening inside, but in fact, real magic is hidden from human eyes: inside the caterpillar’s ​​body breaks down into individual cells and substances, which gradually form into a new adult organism with new organs.

When the time comes, the pupa bursts and an imago emerges from it. In the first minutes of life, a newborn moth gradually spreads its wings, into which hemolymph smoothly passes from the swollen body, and after a couple of hours it makes its first flight in life.

The function of the imago is to leave behind a new generation, therefore all its efforts are aimed at finding a partner and fulfilling the main task of all life on earth - to reproduce and prolong the existence of the species.

Fragile and defenseless

The body of these amazing insects is very fragile, and they have plenty of enemies in the natural environment, so not everyone has a chance to live to a natural death. In order to somehow extend their days, they are forced to use protective mechanisms developed over thousands of years.

Many of them use imitation painting. For example, it is difficult to distinguish an oakleaf butterfly from a dried leaf, which is abundant in the oakleaf habitat.

Calligo uses another amazing mechanism. On the back of its wings there is a drawing of an owl with a sharp beak, so when it sees a bird, the butterfly sharply folds its wings, and the frightened bird, not wanting to face a natural enemy, prefers to quickly retreat.

Lesser Monarch caterpillars prefer a more exotic type of protection. Their caterpillars eat grasses that contain toxic substances, and these substances are stored inside the body of adult individuals. The toxins do not affect their own condition in any way, but birds that swallow the Lesser Monarch may die from poisoning, or, at best, escape with severe vomiting. After such an experience, the surviving bird will never risk satisfying its hunger with a moth.

Amazing foodies

Moths have very interesting feeding habits. They are the second largest plant pollinating group after bees. But among their favorite dishes you can also find more unexpected products.

Males of the Calyptra species can safely be considered vampires, since the basis of their diet is animal blood. To do this, they have a special proboscis, which only looks fragile, but can pierce the skin of animals with its sharp end. Some species eat animal tears because they contain a lot of salts, minerals and other substances necessary for life.

There are amazing varieties that prefer dishes made from wool, moss or wax, while others feast on rot and dung. The cells that determine the taste characteristics of food are not in their mouth, but on the lower parts of their paws, so in order to determine whether something is edible or not, they stomp on the treat.

These creatures have an enviable appetite: on average, they eat twice as much food per day as they weigh themselves. But there are also species that are on a strict diet: the oral apparatus of such creatures is completely absent. They live off the savings that the caterpillar has eaten.

Giants and Lilliputians

Not all moths are small and inconspicuous. There are real Gullivers among them, more reminiscent of birds than insects. These include the Atlas Peacock-eye, which can reach 26 cm. In the wild, they can be found in China, Pakistan, the Philippines or New Guinea. Travelers often mistake them for bats because Peacock-Eyes are most active during twilight. Females are much larger than males, but they do not live long, because death occurs immediately after the eggs are laid and the main function is completed.

At the opposite pole of size is the world's smallest butterfly - Acetosia, living in the British Isles. The body size of this baby is 2 mm, and with open wings - 4 mm. She feeds on pollen, which she collects at night, since during the day she hides her small body in the shade so as not to dry out under the scorching sun.

Despite its miniature size, its lifespan in the world of butterflies is not very short, and is ten days, while most of its relatives live less than a week. Although Acetosia is very small, those who try to look at it will see a beautiful pattern in blue tones.

How they see and hear

The visual apparatus of butterflies is extremely complex: each eye consists of 6 thousand facets or lenses that perceive a separate area of ​​​​the image. Only in the brain is a single image formed that corresponds to the picture of the surrounding world. If we compare their vision with human vision, then all these amazing creatures are myopic.

As for colors, the ability to perceive them depends on the species. Some see the picture in black and white, others can only distinguish one, two or three colors. In sailboats, 15 types of light-sensitive cells were discovered, while in humans there are only three, so people can only guess how sailfish see the world. But most likely, their picture is much more multifaceted and complete.

These insects do not have hearing in the usual sense, but this does not mean that they do not hear approaching objects. There are many sensory cells on their paws that perceive vibrations, so they perceive sound in the form of vibrations at a frequency inaccessible to humans.

Little pilots

The flight of butterflies is a spectacle of incredible beauty. Gentle creatures that overcome the gravity of the earth rise above vanity in a way that is not given to man. To do this, they have two or four wings of various colors. If you touch them, the “pollen” falls off and flight becomes impossible.

A little-known surprising fact is that butterfly wings are not actually colored. “Pollen” are special sacs with transparent walls that reflect light at a certain angle, giving the wing color and shade.

A variety of glassware, Greta Oto, has transparent wings that look surprising and unusual.

The average flight speed for daytime species is about 10 km/h, but among them there are record holders who can accelerate almost like a car driving through the city - up to 60 km/h. Hawkmoths easily move 15 meters in a second, but for such a speed its body generates so much heat that it heats up to a temperature of 40°C. Some varieties are characterized by a clap during impact, as during the flight of large birds.

Some representatives can fly amazing distances, demonstrating endurance that is not always found even among strong animals. For example, the Monarch is capable of flying 1 thousand km without stopping for a break even once.

Where no man has gone before

It is known that butterflies are distributed throughout the entire earth except Antarctica. These fragile insects demonstrate amazing adaptability to different conditions. Sometimes they practically work miracles. Sometimes they can be found in places where a person cannot survive without special equipment.

For example, Parnasius arcticus lives in Siberia near the Arctic Circle, but is able to fly to permafrost areas, where the surface of the earth never thaws and is forever covered with snow or ice. He not only flies to these regions, but also returns back without receiving any damage. Representatives living only 750 km from the North Pole in Canada are also considered true polar explorers. Their homeland is Queen Elizabeth Island, with a harsh and frosty climate characteristic of all the islands of the Arctic Ocean.

Their relative, Parnassius bannyngtoni, climbed the highest. In the Himalaya region, it can be found at an altitude of about 6 thousand meters above sea level, where a person suffers from altitude sickness and suffocates from a lack of oxygen. The desperate butterfly does not face such a danger, but, being included in the ratings of the most beautiful species, it is least susceptible to capture, since it is very rare to meet collectors at such a height.

Chatterboxes

Everyone knows that these insects are as silent as fish. In fact, this fact is not accurate enough. The Death's Head Hawkmoth has a special organ in its throat that performs the same functions as the vocal cords in humans. It is impossible to make Hawkmoth speak in calm times, but in case of any danger or fear, he makes rather loud sounds, similar to a squeak.

“Talking” specimens are rare in nature, so other butterflies prefer to communicate through special odorous substances - pheromones. Females release pheromone molecules into the air, and males, being at a distance, are able to detect them using antennas located on their antennae. The imperial moth has achieved amazing results in this: it is able to sense the scent of a female at a distance of more than 11 km, even if the wind is blowing in the opposite direction.

Gods and goddesses

The word "butterfly" comes from "baba". The fact is that in Rus' it was believed that these fragile creatures personified the souls of old witches or sorceresses who had recently died. In Japan they are considered a symbol of sophisticated geishas.

But Carl Linnaeus, who was the first to describe in detail the huge number of these amazing insects, believed that in many ways they were similar to the majestic and beautiful ancient Greek gods and goddesses, whose names he named most of the species.

In many religions and beliefs, moths were harbingers of happiness. The ancient Aztecs believed that in this form the souls of brave warriors left the earth, and in Christianity they were considered a symbol of Easter and resurrection.

Nowadays, people admire butterflies not only in the wild, but also in special tropical greenhouses, where they can observe metamorphosis, the emergence of adults from cocoons, and the courtship of males with females. Clinics have been built in Stockholm where these winged insects help restore the normal mental state of patients, and experts say that this trend has every chance of becoming widespread throughout the world.