Ornithoptera cresus ranks seventh among the largest butterflies in the world with a wingspan of 16 centimeters. The winged insect received its name in honor of the ancient king of Lydia Croesus. Lepidoptera representatives have a bright orange and yellow coloration, against which a black pattern appears. Naturalist Alfred Wallace is considered the discoverer of the species. The ornithopter Croesus lives in Indonesia on the island of Bachan. The butterfly is currently endangered.
6. Trogonoptera Trojan (lat. Trogonoptera trojana). Wingspan 19 cm.
Trogonoptera Trojana or the Trojan ranks sixth in the ranking of the largest butterflies in the world. The maximum wingspan of the largest representatives is 19 centimeters. Females and males are approximately the same size. The velvety black background of the wings is dominated by a pattern in the form of bright green triangles. The species lives exclusively on the island of Palawan and is endangered. These lepidopterans are also bred on special farms for collection needs.
5. Sailboat antimah (lat. Papilio antimachus). Wingspan 25 cm.
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Sailboat antimah is the largest butterfly found in Africa. The wingspan of the largest representatives is 25 centimeters. Females are much smaller than males. The insect got its name in honor of the mythological hero Antimachus. The species was first discovered in the mid-18th century by the British biologist Smithman. Then the male was caught. The female Antimachus was caught only at the end of the 19th century. have wing colors ranging from yellow to red. The population of this species is small and is protected.
4. Peacock-eye atlas (lat. Attacus atlas). Wingspan 24 cm.
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Peacock eye atlas ranks fourth among the largest butterflies with a wingspan of 24 centimeters. The largest specimen was caught in 1992 and is now kept in the Australian Museum. Another name for the insect is the Prince of Darkness due to its nocturnal lifestyle and bright coloring. The variegated wings are replete with brown, cream, yellow and red patterns. Atlas not only brings aesthetic pleasure, but also material benefits to humans: it produces silk, which is superior in quality to silk silkworm. Lepidoptera live in China, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam. You can admire the bright and large specimens in Russia at the Moscow Zoo. The Prince of Darkness has a short life, which is about two weeks. During this period, adult individuals do not feed, but exist due to substances accumulated in the caterpillar stage.
3. Queen Alexandra's birdwing (Ornithoptera alexandrae). Wingspan 27 cm.
Queen Alexandra's Birdwing reveals the three largest butterflies in the world. Females dominate in size over males. The largest individuals reach a wingspan of 27 centimeters. The caterpillars are also quite large and can reach 12 cm. The largest captured specimen of a female, whose wingspan is 273 mm, is now kept in a museum in London. Males, unlike females, have a very bright, rich color and are considered the most beautiful of the Lepidoptera order. This is one of the rarest species and is highly prized by collectors. But due to the small number of birds, catching birdwings is prohibited. The habitat of the winged insect is Papua New Guinea.
2. Peacock-eye hercules (lat. Coscinocera hercules). Wingspan 27 cm.
Peacock-eye hercules ranks second among the largest butterflies in the world. Females are larger than males and have a wingspan of up to 27 centimeters, and an area of up to 263.2 square meters. cm. The male is distinguished from the female by spurs, which can reach a length of 12 cm. Their caterpillars are also impressive in size, growing up to 16 centimeters in length. The peacock eye is not only very large, but also one of the most beautiful butterflies in the world with a bright color, like a peacock. You can find such beauty in Australia and New Guinea. The winged insect feeds at night. The source of its food is the leaves of many plants. This species can also be bred and live in captivity.
1. South American tropical armyworm (lat. Thysania agrippina). Wingspan 31 cm.
South American tropical owl- the largest butterfly in the world, which from a distance can easily be confused with a small bird. The span of its huge wings can reach 31 centimeters. It was this size that specimens were caught in 1934 and then in 1997. Butterfly caterpillars are also quite large and measure up to 16 cm in length. The winged insect has a pale coloring: a brown pattern appears on a white background. As a rule, the tropical hill is nocturnal. Its habitat is Mexico, South and Central America. She eats the leaves of the cassia bush. This is a rather rare and small species that is still poorly studied.
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And butterflies belong to the same order - Lepidoptera. These insects got their name due to the scales on their wings. 89-94 percent of all known Lepidoptera are moths, and only 6-11 percent are butterflies.
According to the Library of Congress, "One of the easiest ways to tell a butterfly from a moth is to look at the antennae. In butterflies, the antennae have a thickening at one end of a long stalk. In moths, the antennae are hairy or jagged.". We invite you to learn about the most unusual and beautiful moths and butterflies, the existence of which you probably had no idea at all.
1) Poodle Moth
The Venezuelan poodle moth, which was discovered by chance in 2009, has not yet been classified as a new species because scientists are not yet sure how to classify it. Since no one has described such a butterfly before, scientists are trying to trace the evolutionary stages of this insect.
These moths are highly hairy; their legs and wings are covered with tiny hairs, which makes them look like woolly animals, such as poodle dogs, hence the name.
2) Saturnia moon
Saturnia luna is one of the largest North American moths with a wingspan of about 12 centimeters. It can often be found off the east coast North America.
3) Peacock eyes
Peacock-eye species Attacus atlas has the largest wings of all the moths on the planet. Its wingspan can reach about 25 centimeters. It is worth noting that the smallest moth is the dwarf moth, whose wingspan is 0.24 centimeters.
4) Saturnia cecropia
Saturnia cecropia (lat. Hyalophora cecropia) mainly feeds on maple leaves while still a caterpillar. With a wingspan of up to 12 centimeters, this moth is the largest in North America. Like many other moths, cecropia is nocturnal and is very rarely seen during the daytime.
5) Hawkmoth oleander
Hawkmoth oleander (lat. Daphnis nerii) is found in both Africa and Asia. The caterpillars of these butterflies eat extremely poisonous plants, to which they have developed immunity, and adults feed on nectar, preferring such fragrant flowers as jasmine and honeysuckle. Interestingly, they also drink nectar from tobacco flowers.
6) Fingerwings
These strange-looking moths are called fingerwings. Native to North America, they have a T-shaped body and thin wings, making them easy to distinguish from other moths. At one of the larval stages, the moth risks its life by eating carnivorous plants - sundews.
7) King Walnut Moth
Royal nut moth (lat. Citheronia regalis), also known as royal citheronia. These insects are common in southern North America and have also been seen in the New York area. They do not boast the largest wingspan (only 10 centimeters), but by weight they are considered the largest moths in northern Mexico.
8) Volnyanka
This moth species Hemerocampa leucostigma is a medium-sized brown moth, but the caterpillars of this species are extremely attractive. According to the US Forestry Society, these moths have proliferated in alarming numbers and are destroying the leaves of oak trees. Due to the excessive appetite of the caterpillars, trees do not die, but they slow down their growth, which is important for residential and entertainment areas.
The most beautiful and one of the most mysterious insects are butterflies. Scientists still do not fully know the mechanism of their transformation from caterpillars into flying creatures. And even more so - in such large ones.
The world's largest butterfly can be confused with a bird - the wingspan of the South American tropical moth can reach 31 centimeters. This is a nocturnal butterfly; nature has endowed it with colossal size, but not beauty - its color is quite pale.
The South American tropical moth, or Thysania agrippina, is a large nocturnal moth from the moth family. It is the largest butterfly in the world - in 1934, the largest individual with a wingspan of 30.8 cm was caught in Brazil. A similar specimen was caught in 1997 by entomologist Mario Callegari in northern Peru. Distributed in Mexico, Central and South America. Considered a migrant with southern regions in the state of Texas.
Second place in the top of the largest butterflies is occupied by an insect with beautiful name Hercules peacock eye (Coscinocera hercules) from the peacock eye family (Saturniidae). The name speaks for itself - the wing area is huge - 263 square centimeters. The wingspan of females reaches 28 cm. And the coloring really looks like peacock feathers.
The Hercules peacock-eye lives in Australia and on several islands of New Guinea.
But in third place in size is Attacus atlas. This butterfly is also called the prince of darkness for its poisonous color and activity during twilight hours. Although the butterfly turned out to be completely harmless. Another name is Atlas - for its impressive size. This butterfly is considered one of the largest and most beautiful in the world. The wings are colored brown, red, yellow, cream and pink.
In this species, females are also larger than males. The maximum wingspan is 26 cm. It is found in tropical forests South China, some countries South-East Asia(from Thailand to Indonesia, Java and Borneo).
This is probably the only species of large butterfly that people have learned to use to their advantage. The silk thread secreted by the satin caterpillar is used to create silk fabrics, and in Taiwan markets you can see original wallets made from large 10-centimeter cocoons.
Among the largest butterflies, scientists also identify Queen Alexandra's birdwing or Queen Alexandra's ornithopter (Ornithoptera alexandrae). This is a day butterfly that belongs to the family of swallowtails (Papilionidae) - named after the wife of King Edward the Seventh of Great Britain - the Princess of Denmark. Apparently, the monarch's wife was just as beautiful.
The male Queen Alexandra Birdwing can be called the king of butterflies. Its huge wings with a span of 170-200 mm shine green and blue flowers. The wings are narrower than those of other birdwings and resemble the leaves of a tropical plant.
The female is different from the male. It is much larger: the span of its huge wings reaches 280 mm - this is more than that of any other day butterfly. But in brightness and beauty she is inferior to the male: on her wide dark brown wings there is a light ornament of cream and yellowish “strokes” of various shapes. The peculiar pattern of the underside of the wings with contrasting wide darkening along the veins allows one to immediately distinguish the female Queen Alexandra birdwing from other birdwing species.
This is a very rare species of butterfly and it lives exclusively in the Popondetta Mountains, Papua New Guinea.
If in England butterflies were named after princesses, then in Russia the most major representative these insects are named after the Russian naturalist and are called the Maak's tail-bearer (Papilio maackii) belongs to the family of Swallowtails or Cavaliers (Papilionidae); lives in the Middle Amur region, Primorye, North Korea, Manchuria, on the Kuril Islands.
In these places, butterflies are often found in broad-leaved and mixed forests, less often - in spruce-fir. During the period when subalpine plants bloom, butterflies rise into the mountains up to 2000 m above sea level: looking for food, they fly around treeless peaks in a circle. It’s hard to believe that the distribution area of this wonderful sailboat extends to 54° north latitude, where Tynda and northern Sakhalin are located. Every year, two generations of Maak's tailbearers appear: spring butterflies are medium-sized, light and bright, while summer butterflies are twice as large and darker. The female is larger than the male, her wingspan reaches 135 mm, while that of the male is 125 mm.
A large butterfly (Papilio antimachus) with a wingspan of 25 cm. In this species, on the contrary, males are larger than females. The color of the wings varies from ocher to orange and red-yellow.
Distributed in wet forests Africa (Cameroon, Liberia, Angola, Congo, Zaire, Uganda, Nigeria, etc.). Females prefer to stay in the treetops and very rarely go down. Males tend to stay on flowering plants.
Argema mittrei - Madagascar comet aka Moon moth. The most beautiful moth in the world. She holds the record for wing size 140-160 mm.
The butterfly lives only in the tropical rainforests of the African island of Madagascar