Rich countries in terms of butterfly diversity include Brazil, Peru, Indonesia, China and, in general, all tropical regions of the planet. Most of the more than 150 thousand species of butterflies known today live there, which are often striking in their size and color.
One of the poorest countries is Greenland - only five species of diurnal butterflies live there, and on some small oceanic islands and in Antarctica there are none at all. In fact, some of famous people said that butterflies convey the image of a country like no other. Southern countries are bright, colorful, cheerful, and so are the butterflies. In northern countries, butterflies are dull, blurry pastel colors.
It only seems to us that they are a manifestation of the “wastefulness” of nature. In fact, butterflies are mostly colored for very prosaic reasons. One of them is camouflage, that is, butterflies “hide” in their natural environment in this way. Let's say, in the highlands of Europe there lives a group of butterflies - Parnassians. This is a large genus, which has about a hundred species; in particular, our almost legendary Apollo belongs to it. These are translucent butterflies that seem to convey the crystal transparency of the air, the colors of glaciers, clear skies. They seem to harmonize with the landscape in which they live. Another group is nigella. They are brown or black, with an ocher color - this is also an attribute of the highlands, rocks, where the dark color allows them to better accumulate solar heat in cold climates. Another purpose of paints is to confuse people. As you know, birds have very good vision, and color vision. Now they see an insect and are already flying towards it to feast on it, the butterfly suddenly spreads its wings, and there, for example, big eyes appear. The bird gets scared for a moment, and meanwhile the butterfly runs away.
In fact, butterfly wings are covered with thousands of tiny scales, which give them their bright colors. These scales have a varied texture and, as a rule, are painted with various coloring substances - pigments, on which the pattern on the wings and their color depend. Sometimes the scales are colorless, but thanks to the shape of a prism, they refract light in such a way that they create bizarre iridescence of all the colors of the rainbow. Hence the variety and play of colors on the wings of butterflies.
Who is more beautiful - a male or a female?
Male. Females are usually larger, but males are more beautiful. This is due to the characteristics of reproduction. The fact is that butterflies reproduce only once. And until the female has laid eggs, she should be as inconspicuous as possible so as not to get into someone’s teeth. And males are more beautiful, however, for reproduction this is of rather little importance. Males find a female by smell, that is, pheromones are important, not color. This is a very subtle mechanism: there are species that find a female several kilometers away. But when the female is already fertilized, the smell changes, and she no longer attracts males.
Does global warming affect butterfly population changes?
There are no global changes in fauna caused by warming yet, but certain trends can be traced. For example, you can often find the bindweed hawkmoth: this tropical look, which, however, migrates to the Arctic Circle. These butterflies arrive from the Mediterranean in the spring and lay eggs, starting a new generation that develops here. In the fall, butterflies emerge from a different generation - a local one, which can often be seen in gardens among flowers in September. But this local generation is no longer fruitful; here it dies. There is a simple reason for this: over the past few thousand years, the climate in Europe has changed several times. Ice Ages were replaced by warming. It is genetically determined for these butterflies that they should fly to the north - obviously, previously there were such conditions here that they developed and migrated without hindrance. It's too cold for them now. But let’s imagine that the temperature rises by several degrees, these butterflies will be able to populate territories much further north, and new heat-loving species will appear on our territory.
Butterflies- such beautiful, bright, fragile creatures.
Don't you want to know more about them? Search for material
After reading a lot
interesting material from
Internet and encyclopedias about
beautiful butterflies, I decided
tell you and show you everything
what did I learn about these amazing
insects What am I interested in?
-Birth of a butterfly.
-How many varieties of butterflies are there and why do they have such
nice names?
-What is the peculiarity of the structure of butterfly wings?
-What distances can butterflies travel?
-What transformations occur to them?
-Are there harmful butterflies? LEGEND
ABOUT THE BIRTH OF A BUTTERFLY
Once upon a time, the goddess of flowers Flora decided to make the god Zeus
gift: she took the purity of the early morning, the freshness of the mountain
streams, the crystal shine of morning dew, beauty and
fragrance of all earthly plants and created a flower equal
which was not in the whole wide world. God Zeus after seeing this
a magnificent gift, I couldn’t resist kissing the tender
petals.
And - lo and behold! – the flower broke away from the stem and flew away.
This is how, according to ancient Greek legend, butterflies appeared! So beautiful and different. .
Patterns and colors on the wings
butterflies are not only for beauty,
but also for survival. Such
patterns make them invisible
for enemies against a background of flowers and
leaves. Do you know what?...
The hardiest butterfly in the world
has the name "Monarch". She can
cover a distance of a thousand
kilometers without stopping.
Peacock eye - received
its name for its characteristic
eye spots on the wings. In order for butterflies to fly, they need
solar warmth. The biggest butterfly.
The largest moth in the world is the Birdwing moth. Its wingspan is 30 cm, so it
often confused with a bird. The smallest
The smallest butterfly in the world is rightfully considered
"Blue Dwarf", whose wingspan
is only 1.5 cm. Benefit or harm?
Butterflies are the best
plant pollinators. A
some flowers in general
pollinated only by butterflies.
Flying from flower to
butterflies collect flower
nectar and pollinate plants. Cabbage-hawthorn.
Butterflies are beautiful and
mysterious creatures, but
they are just as insidious.
Their larvae are very
they are gluttonous and that's what they are
cause harm to forest and
agriculture. The most interesting thing is that the development of a butterfly
occurs with metamorphosis.
Metamorphosis is a transformation
Sample subtitle
Nomination " Children's project in primary school"
One summer I came to visit my grandmother. She had many, many flowers planted, and butterflies fluttered above them. It was so beautiful! I've seen these beautiful insects before, but not like this. large quantities. That's why I probably didn't pay attention to them. Well, they fly and fly. I began to look at them and I wanted to know more about butterflies. My project is dedicated to the study of these beautiful insects.
Objective of the project: Study of the main features of the structure, life activity and development of butterflies.
Tasks:
1. Uz come from various sources about the species, development of butterflies and life activity.
2. Observe the life of butterflies, find out what their benefits and harms are.
3. Conduct a survey of my classmates and draw conclusions.
4. Talk about your research.
Relevance:Butterflies are very beautiful insects and often attract our attention.
Hypothesis 1: A butterfly goes through several stages of transformation in its development.
Hypothesis 2: Butterflies are very beautiful and diverse, they are found very often, they delight us and bring us benefits.
Object of research: butterfly.
Subject of study:butterfly development process.
Appendix: booklet“The beauty is nearby. Butterflies."
During the study, my hypotheses were confirmed.
- BA butterfly goes through 4 stages of transformation in its development. Egg - larva or caterpillar - pupa - butterfly.
- The butterfly is very beautiful, therefore it pleases us and brings benefits, but caterpillars also bring harm.
We must take care of this fragile and beautiful creation!
I was interested in doing the research. I learned in detail about the structure and life activity of butterflies and their types. There are so many butterflies! I learned to notice butterflies in everyday life.
- My New Year's costume was “butterfly”.
- I made a lot of butterflies from paper.
- There are also a lot of butterflies in the form of drawings on clothes.
- Hairpins, bows in the form of butterflies.
- I decorated the T-shirt myself with butterflies.
- My sister goes in for swimming. She also met butterflies. One of the swimming styles “butterfly” is translated as “butterfly”.
Can be assembled huge collection butterflies and devote a lifetime to studying them. And in the summer I will try to breed the butterfly myself at home.
My work can be used in lessons about the surrounding world, visual arts, literary reading. I came across many poems and stories about butterflies.
My mother and teacher helped me conduct research and complete my work. Many thanks to them!
Appendix 1. Project “Butterflies are beautiful and interesting!”
Appendix 2. Project presentation.
Why are butterflies so beautiful?
As soon as summer comes, they begin to circle low above the ground colorful butterflies, one is more beautiful than the other. When a butterfly lands on a flower, it is difficult to distinguish its wings from its petals. Both of them match each other: blue, orange, pink - very bright and beautiful.
Butterflies should not be caught, much less touched by their wings. Not only will you damage them, but you will also wear off the paint. This is very easy to do. It seems that the wings of butterflies themselves are so colorful, but in fact they are transparent, like those of a dragonfly or fly. They are painted in different colors by the tiny scales that cover the wings, tightly adjacent to each other. That's why scientists call butterflies Lepidoptera.
Butterflies, like all other insects, are divided into species, and butterflies of the same species are very similar to each other, like twins. But sometimes exactly identical butterflies, for example antiopes (mourning butterflies), have a border along the edges of their dark velvet wings different color. One is yellow, and the other is white. This means that one of the butterflies has only recently appeared
into the world, and the other was born last summer and managed to spend the winter, huddled in some crevice.
Small urticaria butterflies are among the first to appear in the spring, with multi-colored orange and dark spots on their wings with a blue stripe along the edges. This butterfly was called the nettle butterfly because its caterpillars live on nettles. These butterflies also overwinter somewhere in a warm place and fly out when the snow has not yet completely melted.
Also in early spring A bright yellow butterfly appears, which some call lemongrass for its color, and others call buckthorn, since the caterpillars of this butterfly feed on buckthorn leaves.
Very beautiful little blue butterflies are called beautiful blue butterflies. Butterflies with narrow transparent wings are glass butterflies. Their wings are covered with the same scales, only transparent. But in Brazil lives the most brilliant butterfly in the world - the blue cyprida. Her wings are covered with such shiny scales that they appear mirror-like.
The colorful coloring of butterflies protects them from enemies, making them completely invisible against the background of flowers and leaves. Some butterflies also have additional protection. Thus, South American heliconid butterflies produce such bad smell that the birds don’t even fly close to them. They also avoid Pyrrhus whites, which do not have such a smell, but are very similar to striped heliconids.
African moths - niktipao - also scare away birds with their fragrant smell, which comes from the fragrant hairs located on the wings. The same smell allows butterflies to find each other in the dark.
Very often you can see how butterflies land on a flower and lower their thin proboscis into its cup. These butterflies feed on flower nectar. Other butterflies do not sit on flowers, they drink nectar, hovering over the flower and often, often fluttering their wings, lowering their proboscis into the flower cup from above. This is how heavy nocturnal butterflies mainly drink nectar.
But not all butterflies feed on flower nectar. Among them there are very dangerous pests, whose caterpillars eat leaves and stems of plants, causing irreparable harm to forests and fields.