Butterfly respiratory organs. Respiratory system of insects. How do insects breathe? The furthest migration
All metabolic processes in the body are based on the oxidation reaction, which releases energy used for life. As an oxidizing agent, all life on planet Earth uses the oxygen contained in the air. Butterflies do not have a lung-like organ, but they do have an air exchange system, and it is quite efficient. Oxygen enters through spiracles (stigmas) located on the chest and abdomen of the butterfly. There are up to 10 pairs in total, they are placed on the sides. The stigma subsequently opens into the trachea (breathing tube), which, gradually thinning, wraps around the internal organs. The movement of air through the respiratory tubes is provided by constant and rhythmic contractions of the abdomen. The number of contractions varies depending on the physiological state of the butterfly and the need for oxygen. The spiracles are protected from ingestion foreign objects and substances in abundance of hairs. At adverse conditions and irritation of the stigma, it has the ability to close and open.
Settled more comfortably. Nice to rest on fresh air in own garden. Abandoned garden. Yes… a lot has changed since I got out of prison.
Now, already 10 years later, as a 26-year-old man, looking back, I understand how much I lost in my not so long life. And this applies not only to time ... My life ended exactly at the age of 16. It ended with me being sent to a men's juvenile detention facility because of the gang murder of a boy who was 14 years old at the time. I remember that cloudy September day very well, but I would agree that someone would erase this fateful date from my memory at all, because as someone or something reminds me of this day, I suddenly become unbearably ill and sick . After 2 years, when I turned 18, I was transferred to prison.
On the last day of my stay in prison, it didn’t matter to me whether they would let me out or not. 8 years of life wasted. Of course, what I thought about freedom in this damn place, because no one could forbid me to think. In prison you change. AT bad side? Maybe. In a good one? Perhaps... Everything is too relative, and you can not look at it only from one side. Well, yes, they released ... And what's next? And then, it seems, life goes on, at 24 years old. But not ex-prisoners. Personally, I don't have anything left. My mother and father abandoned me, moving to another country, and leaving me a two-room apartment in the city center as a delicacy, and my grandparents died a long time ago. All mine already former friends parted in different directions after graduating from schools and universities, while I served time.
But to tell the truth, I was interested in the fate of one good man. I was interested in the fate of Tricky. Tricky was so kind, so nice and small. I don’t know why, but because of her short stature, some strange fictitious name Tricky came to my mind, and after that I called her more often than not. When we met at the next party, I was 13, and she was 12. The age difference was exactly one year. At a time when many girls already at 12-13 had a height of 66-67 meters, her height was 58 meters. And at 16 her height was 60 meters, although the figure was already fully formed. I have not met more cheerful and real girls in my life, except for the one I am telling you about. She was just a simple girl, and not that overdressed girl that every ordinary guy wanted to use and throw away as unnecessary material. Sitting in the colony and prison, I often thought about her. My thoughts were only about freedom and about Tricky. I even wrote letters to her, but for some reason she did not answer everything, and maybe even that these letters, sorted out, were simply thrown away. Interestingly, even when I was arrested, she still remained calm. She smiled at me, showed me the “victory” sign with two fingers, and I never saw her again after that.
I found her 2 years after I was released from prison. Tricky was 25 years old, she was all the same vertically challenged with kind eyes and the best character in the world, and she already had a child whom she gave birth to from a loved one. And again... Was I glad? Maybe. Was I sad? Maybe. However, I kept in touch with her.
I myself spent little time in my apartment, instead I preferred most time is in an abandoned garden. Of course, before I came to this garden, I did not know that it was in such a state. It turns out that my so-called parents simply abandoned him, leaving him to the mercy of fate, while they themselves went abroad. This made me hate them even more. But the garden turned out to be even more beautiful. On the tall grass, which almost reached the top of the same overgrown trees, sat three butterflies. They were incredibly beautiful, and I did not think that in our region there are such amazing creatures. Butterflies were big! Then I saw 3 pieces. Two orange and one dark purple. I touched one with the fingers of my palm, and it fluttered and flew away, followed by others.
After that, I made my way through all the plants to our garden house. How is it overgrown with vines! Beautiful lilac flowers, like specks, decorated white wall home, up to the roof. As for the front wooden door, it was locked, and the liana wrapped around it so that the handle was almost invisible.
In the following time, I went every day to our abandoned family garden and put it in order, being there from morning until late evening. So, a week later, I recut all the foliage, grass, weeded a bunch of weeds, but did not touch the liana and other creeping plants overgrown on a high fence. Although they looked sloppy, but there was beauty in it.
But how much more work I had to do inside the house ... I cleaned everything from the inside, including old and yellowed newspapers, a broken old TV and similar trash. When I was done, I sat down on a green fabric sofa near a small window. The sun shone brightly, and its rays illuminated the entire small house. I really liked how clean the window looked now that I had rubbed it to a shine. As soon as I looked a little higher, I noticed the butterfly again! Where are they from? This time it was yellow. And then I had an idea: maybe I should catch these butterflies in a net?
I immediately ran to the pet store and bought a small cage with thick bars and a small net.
Butterflies I caught slowly, slowly. To my greatest surprise, there were much more of them than I expected. It was not clear to me why there were so many of them and from where, they were of different colors, but mostly bluish and orange prevailed. A day in my net turned out to be 3-4 pieces, and I launched them into my cage, which stood on a small table in the middle of the room. I spent the night in a garden house, and I came to an apartment in the city center only to dust and pay public utilities. Wash basin, refrigerator, toothpaste and a brush - everything was in my new home. At least in the summer, I planned to live only in this house.
At night, when I was already falling asleep on my green sofa, I heard the light flutter of butterflies in the cage. Oh, it was one of the most wonderful sounds in the world that I have ever heard! Thanks to the flutter of their wings in absolute silence, I fell asleep almost instantly, my sleep was sweet. I woke up early in the morning to quickly feed my bright creatures with a green breakfast consisting of flowers. I carefully cut off each flower and pushed them to the butterflies. It was interesting to watch them drink nectar, and then sprinkle them with water - they really liked it.
Butterflies have become my hobby. I looked after them, and, in my opinion, they felt great. Once in a cage, I already counted 12 pieces. And when I woke up one July day in the morning, I saw an interesting picture: several butterflies were sitting on a cage. These were new! I went to the cage and thought that they would immediately take off and fly away, but it turned out just the opposite: each butterfly took off and settled on one part of my body - on my shoulder, on my ear and on my wrist. The sign was completely clear to me, I caught them in a net and let them go to the others.
We survived autumn and winter. Over the summer, in total, I caught 25 butterflies. All beautiful creatures, down to the smallest butterfly, remained alive, which amazed me even more. Not only did they survive, but none of them tried to fly out of the cage!
And one of the most beautiful, the color of which was dark emerald with yellow spots on the wings, I named after the nicest man on Earth for me - in honor of Tricky. Tricky's butterfly was as pretty as Tricky's girlfriend herself. I suddenly realized that I was so carried away by my butterflies that even for half a year I never got in touch with her ... But dialing cell number, it turned out that it no longer works. After that, I never called Tricky, and even in social networks did not try to search.
Spring has come. End of April. I got out into the garden again and began to put it in order. He began to clear the remaining snow, remove the accumulated debris over the winter. Entering the house, I looked at the cage with butterflies. I looked at them from afar for a long time. For some reason, right now, an inexplicable wave of memories flooded over me, saturated with thick nostalgia for the old days of my life. Pictures flashed through my mind of my carefree childhood, my first day at school, my first time smoking weed at the age of 10 and then taking recreational drugs at 13, my first kiss with Tricky also at 13… Oh my God, what goosebumps ran all over my body ... September 6, 1999, the day of the murder of a 14-year-old boy who did not want to sell our reckless group of another dose of light drugs, crashed into my memory so suddenly, like lightning. I winced. And here it is, after 8 years of release from prison ...
When I came back to myself, I went to the butterfly cage and, I swear, for the first time in 10 years, I cried like Small child. No, I sobbed looking at my lovely pets. How much has been lost, how much has been done badly, thoughtlessly for 26 years of my damn life ... That night it was very difficult for me to fall asleep, even when butterfly wings were fluttering right under my ear.
Time flew by quickly, and now it's mid-May. I stood with a cage in my hands in my fragrant flower garden and admired the bright blue sky, which was absolutely clear. The perfect weather only cheered me up with its gentle warmth. Butterflies impatiently fought in an iron cage with thick rods, in which they lived for almost a whole year. I squatted down and took one last look at each beauty individually. Could not get enough of them, feeling proud. Pride, as if they were my own children, who are about to fly away into the unknown a little more. Probably, the feeling of freedom, if not the most, but one of the most important feelings on Earth, which every person must experience, even if this person is the most terrible and rare scoundrel.
I lifted the iron cage high, holding it in one hand and holding on to the cage door with the other. One, two, three...and...!!! All the butterflies fluttered at once. I froze in place. I have never seen such a bright dance of colors in my life. They seemed to paint blue sky in hundreds of different tones bright colors… My heart stopped. Butterflies were already circling far away from me, creating, as it seemed to me, a colored funnel, and the flutter of their wings was so loud that it echoed throughout my garden. I felt then something indistinct and mixed, something perfect and even close to unearthly. My chest let out a terrible spirit of experiences, dead hopes, and my heart, punctured by time, was sewn up right on the go, while the vile seams were smoothed out, as if by magic, being replaced by a new and living tissue. Believe it or not, but I FELT it. Fresh, spring-like virgin air filled my chest from the inside, healing the wounds of the past. I spread my arms in different directions and passionately wanted nature to embrace me with all its beautiful body. She did it with great pleasure, giving me a second wind of life. My destiny, my talisman, stored somewhere deep in the subconscious, my healing lurked in tiny bright creatures that had just fluttered out of their hearth, taking the sick part of me with them. I, like butterflies, flew away at that moment, happily screaming into the blue sky and comprehending the horizons of bliss and pleasure.
Sat down on green grass. I heard the crack of the gate. It was open... Forgot to close it last night. Jumping around the corner of the garden house, I saw a short girl. Tricky stood at the gate, clutching a wicker basket to her and smiling the kindest smile on earth.
Fluttering butterflies are the personification of a carefree life. In fact, their destiny is a continuous struggle for survival. To do this, butterflies have special adaptations, many of which are not found in other insects.
tendrils help balance in flight and play the role of a nose - they catch the smells of other butterflies or food brought by air currents. Males that search for females by pheromones have larger antennae.
compound eyes provide a wide field of view. But butterflies do not differ in visual acuity - their eyes consist of 17,000 segments, giving a mosaic image. At the points of contact between adjacent segments, there are long bristles that protect the eyes from pollen.
On the head is special body , called jones. It is designed to analyze shaking and sound vibrations. With its help, butterflies not only assess the state environment but also communicate.
Mouth organs, like other insects, are not found in butterflies: upper lip and the jaws and lower lip are either absent altogether, or they are barely distinguishable. But the lower jaws, on the contrary, are strongly elongated and form a proboscis. With its help, the butterfly sucks out nectar or other liquid food. Due to the injection of blood fluid, the elastic proboscis unwinds, and when this fluid flows out, it twists into a spiral. Not all species have a developed proboscis, many butterflies do not eat anything, but live off the reserves accumulated by the caterpillar.
The butterfly breathes through the thinnest tubes - the trachea pervading her entire body. Air enters them through special openings on the chest and abdomen.
Wings are actually transparent. Color them in different colors smallest scales. Their number can reach several hundred thousand. The scales are different: pigmented with a coloring matter; optical reflect and refract the incident light, because of this, the wings have a metallic sheen; androconial exude an aroma that attracts males (sometimes the smell is so strong that a person can also feel it).
On paws most species have taste sensors that are 2000 times more sensitive than receptors on the human tongue. Like the wings, the legs have scented scales that attract mating partners.
Abdomen usually consists of 8-9 segments, the last is the genital opening. Males also have special appendages on the abdomen - tweezers. With their help, the male holds the female in the desired position. Some species of butterflies only need a couple of minutes to mate, while others take up to 36 hours.
Instead of red blood, butterflies have transparent or yellow hemolymph. It contains neither red blood cells nor hemoglobin.
Butterflies are arthropods - the most highly developed animals among invertebrates. They got their name for the presence of jointed tubular limbs. Other hallmark is the outer skeleton, formed by plates of a durable polysaccharide - quinine. In arthropods, as a result of the development of a strong outer shell and articulated limbs, a complex system of muscles appeared, attached from the inside to the integuments. All movements of their body parts and internal organs are connected with muscles.
1- abdomen
2- chest
3- head with antennae
4- proboscis
5, 8, 9 - front, middle and hind legs
6, 7 - the first and second pair of wings
Butterfly body consists of three sections: head, thorax and abdomen. With a webbed short and soft neck, the head is fastened to the chest, which consists of three segments that are motionlessly connected to each other. Connection points are not visible. Each of the segments bears a pair of jointed legs. Butterflies have three pairs of legs on their chests. The forelegs of male nymphalids, satyr pigeons are underdeveloped; in females, they are more developed, but they are also not used when walking and are always pressed to the chest. In sailfish and fatheads, all legs are normally developed, and the lower legs of their front legs are equipped with lobe-like formations, which are believed to be used to clean the eyes and antennae. In butterflies, the legs serve mainly to attach to certain place and only then - for movement. Some butterflies have taste buds on their legs: before such a butterfly touches the sweet solution with its limb, it will not unfold its proboscis and will not start eating.
On the head are the mouth apparatus, antennae and eyes. The oral apparatus of the sucking type is a non-segmented, at rest spirally curled, long tubular proboscis. The lower jaws and lower lip take part in its formation. Butterflies have no upper jaws. While eating, the butterfly spreads its long proboscis, plunging it deep into the flower, and sucks out the nectar. As the main source of food, adult Lepidoptera use nectar, therefore they are among the main pollinators of flowering plants. All insects, including butterflies, have a special organ called the Jones organ, designed to analyze shaking and sound vibrations. With the help of this organ, insects not only assess the state of the physical environment, but also communicate with each other.
Butterflies are perfect nervous system and sense organs, thanks to which they perfectly orient themselves in the environment, quickly respond to danger signals. The nervous system, like that of all arthropods, consists of the peripharyngeal ring and the ventral nerve chain. In the head as a result of the merging of clusters nerve cells brain is formed. This system controls all movements of the butterfly, except for such involuntary functions as blood circulation, digestion, respiration. Researchers believe that these functions are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.
1- excretory organs
2- middle intestine
3- goiter
4- heart
5- anterior intestine
6- large intestine
7- sexual organs
8- nerve node
9- brain
Circulatory system , as in all arthropods, open. The blood directly washes the internal organs and tissues, being in the body cavity, transferring nutrients to them and carrying harmful waste products to the excretory organs. It does not participate in the transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide, that is, in respiration. Its movement is provided by the work of the heart - a longitudinal muscular tube located in the dorsal part above the intestines. The heart, pulsating rhythmically, drives blood to the head end of the body. The backflow of blood is prevented by the valves of the heart. When the heart expands, blood enters it from the back of the body through its side openings, which are equipped with valves that prevent backflow of blood. In the body cavity, unlike the heart, blood flows from the anterior end to the posterior end, and then, getting into the heart as a result of its pulsation, it again goes to the head.
Respiratory system is a dense network of branched internal tubes - trachea, through which air, entering through the external spiracles, is delivered directly to all internal organs and fabrics.
excretory system - this is a bundle of thin tubes, the so-called malpighian vessels, located in the body cavity. They are closed at the tops, and open into the intestines at the bases. The metabolic products are filtered out by the entire surface of the Malpighian vessels, and then inside the vessels they turn into crystals. Then they enter the intestinal cavity and, together with undigested food residues, are excreted from the body. Some harmful substances, especially poisons, accumulate and isolate in the fat body.
reproductive system females consist of two ovaries in which the formation of eggs occurs. The ovaries, passing into tubular oviducts, merge with their bases into a single unpaired oviduct, through which mature eggs are brought out. In the female reproductive system there is a seminal receptacle - a reservoir where male spermatozoa enter. Mature eggs can be fertilized by these spermatozoa. The reproductive organs of the male are two testes that pass into the vas deferens, which are combined into an unpaired ejaculatory canal, which serves to remove sperm.
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The widest range of all insects
At the American white butterfly Hyphantria cunea from the bear family. This pest of has the widest habitat. Its caterpillar feeds on 636 species of plants that grow in different parts of the world. the globe. It is inferior to the gypsy moth butterfly and the Japanese beetle. The gypsy moth butterfly feeds on plants whose parts contain tannin.
Vision
The number of facets in the eye of a butterfly is 17,000; in a fly, there are 4,000 facets; and in a dragonfly, 28,000.
Butterfly variety
Body temperature
To fly, the butterfly's muscles must be warmed up to at least 30 degrees. That is why you can so often see a butterfly, which, with its wings wide open, basks in the sun - it replenishes the spent energy.
organs of taste
Where is the taste organ in a butterfly? Because she has no language. In the trunk? But I didn't guess. Imagine - on the paws. And this “language” of hers is 2000 times more sensitive than that of a person. As soon as a butterfly touches delicious pollen or sweet juice with its paws, it immediately understands what's what, and its proboscis instantly unfolds.
Butterfly proboscis
A distinctive feature of butterflies is a soft proboscis. It is always coiled up and unfolds when the butterfly eats. The length of the proboscis, by the way, depends on the depth of the calyx of the flower on which the butterflies feed. a certain kind. Sometimes the proboscis is very short, and sometimes it is long, up to 35 centimeters, like that of the Madagascar hawk moth.
The largest moth in the world -Attacus Altas.
With a wingspan of 30 cm, it is often mistaken for a bird.
Butterfly breath
The butterfly breathes through the thinnest tubes - tracheas, penetrating its entire body. They are connected to outside world two holes on the chest and sixteen on the abdomen.
Upper limit of hearing in insects
caterpillar peacock eye 1000 Hz
Grasshopper 90,000 Hz
Tongue on feet
Butterflies recognize the taste of plants with organs that are located on their legs.
Butterfly heart
Do butterflies have a heart? Yes, I have. Only not in the chest, but ... in the abdomen. And their blood is not red, but green. It does not contain hemoglobin, and it does not carry oxygen, as in humans, but delivers nutrients, various hormones and enzymes to all insect cells.
color vision
night moths Deilephila elpenor in the dark they "switch" their vision to color. During the experiment, the insect found yellow and blue artificial flowers in complete darkness, choosing them from eight other shades. gray color. The second series of experiments was carried out under moonlight. The moth was wrong only 10% of the time. It has been found that the insect cannot distinguish between a brighter shade of color and a darker one. This means that it uses exactly "spectral analysis" for vision, i.e. in other words, the moth sees in color.
It was found that the insect has three color receptors - blue, green and ultraviolet. At night, when there is very little light, complex structure The moth's eye captures light and reflects it inside the eye about 600 times, thus amplifying the light signal.
These moths live in Europe and Asia, fly out in May-June, breed at the end of August.
Flying Deilephila elpenor
Track weight
The caterpillar can lift up to 25 times its own weight.
spinning record
Cocoon silkworm consists of 4,601,100 meters of thread, produced in 72 hours.
Mutually beneficial cooperation
Yucca moth(yucca moth), which lives in the desert, is the sole pollinator of flowering yucca cacti. Pollination occurs in the following way. A butterfly collects pollen from one cactus in its mouth and carries it to another cactus, flying to the smell of flowers. Upon arrival, she unerringly unloads pollen in the right place to set seeds. Here, the butterfly lays three eggs, and its caterpillars feed on cactus seeds, which were formed as a result of pollination. They eat a small fraction of the seeds, most of the seeds are preserved and give life to new plants.
Butterflies breed on schedule
It turns out that butterflies are not at all "carefree". There is nothing more orderly than their lives. The morning is dedicated to collecting nectar. In the world of insects, the butterfly is the best pollinator of flowers after bees. By noon comes the hour of copulation. The males chase the females. Soon the latter lay their eggs on the leaves. In the evening calm reigns again. The butterflies return to their hiding place.
Cumulative partners may belong to different types. The night moth female Prince of Darkness (Attacus atlas) formed a pair with a male diurnal blue Guianan Morpho. The female Attacus emitted her sensual ferments, her scent was so strong that even people could smell it from a distance. The copulation lasted only 10 minutes. The female laid eggs. But to no avail. In Attacus butterflies, copulation can last up to 36 hours, the female can lay 200 eggs. Therefore, it is necessary that the male ensure fertilization. He has to work hard!
poisonous blood
Pestryanki (Zygaenidae) stand out immediately black body they cast steel, wings - with scarlet spots. They are slow and clumsy, and do not fly well. It is worth taking a butterfly in your hands - it pretends to be dead, releasing a yellow, disgustingly smelling liquid from the joints. This is the poisonous blood of the parsley, making it inedible. Because the butterflies sit quietly on plants, warning everyone with their color. Their caterpillars are also poisonous.
The rarest butterfly
Several species claim the title of the rarest butterfly, including the largest of all butterflies - sailboat of Queen Alexandra. She lives in Papua New Guinea. The survival of this species was not facilitated by the attention paid to it by collectors.
Climate change threatens monarchs
monarch butterflies traveling hundreds of kilometers to spend the winter in mountain forests Mexico, may disappear in 50 years. Rainy weather, combined with the cold that is typical for these places, can cause the extinction of these colorful butterflies. The increase in humidity in the mountainous coniferous forests west of Mexico City will leave butterflies without any shelter for the winter.
Monarchs are the most common of the North American butterflies. Every summer they breed several times, and the last generation makes a record migration in the fall, moving to Mexico even from Canada. There they live in forests that provide shelter from rain and cold (the temperature here can drop below zero). In the spring, the surviving monarchs return north, stopping in milkweed fields to lay their eggs. Butterflies hatched from them continue their journey to the north, from where the next flight to the south will begin in the fall.
These butterflies have a very narrow temperature and humidity range that they can tolerate in winter. So, the combination of temperatures below zero with rain is almost fatal for them. When this happened in January 2002, almost 80% of the butterflies that wintered in Mexico died.
butterfly color
The color of their wings is created by tiny overlapping scales that reflect light.
Twig caterpillars
Moth caterpillars (Geometridae) possess amazing ability imitate twigs and petioles, which contributes to protective coloration. Having frozen in such a "protruding" state, the caterpillar becomes invisible to enemies. Moths, or surveyors, butterflies also got their name due to the peculiar way of movement of their caterpillars. In caterpillars of moths, the abdominal legs are developed only on the sixth and last segments of the abdomen, which is associated with a peculiar "gait" with a loop-like bending of the body.
Butterflies do not fly into the light
They are attracted to the darkest place, which, in their opinion, is located directly behind the light source.
Travelers
Moth moths (Pyraustidae) outwardly resemble moths. Butterflies with a wingspan of 20-25 mm, variable in color. They feed on flowers around the clock. In search of food, they migrate, walking up to a kilometer a day. They overwinter in the soil in a cocoon. Butterflies fly over a distance of 30-100 km, and are carried by the wind for 400-500 km. Meadow Moth (Margaritia sticticalis) can give outbreaks of mass reproduction in the Baikal region, assuming the dimensions of a disaster.
Other travelers are hawks (Sphingidae), large butterflies with a streamlined body and narrow wings. They reach speeds of up to 50 km per hour and fly long distances.
Butterfly's plume
The luxurious plume of the male Saturnia butterfly serves to trap odorous pheromone molecules.
When the female is 2 km away
A male emperor moth can sense and locate a female of its own species from a distance of two kilometers.
The scented substance of butterflies
To obtain one gram of the odorous substance of butterflies, with which females call males, it was necessary to “take away” it from four million butterflies. mulberry silkworm.
At gypsy moth there is more odorous substance than mulberry: 2.5 million butterflies are required to obtain a gram.
males gypsy moth smell the female in moderate wind at a distance of 3.8 km. No foreign odors prevent them from smelling the right smell.
big peacock butterfly fly to the female, having covered a distance of 8 km. From a distance of 4.1 km to the female sitting under gauze in the cage, almost half returned, and from a distance of 11 km - more than a quarter of the released males.
Silkworms do not form a pair
That's why they called him gypsy moth(Lymantria dispar). Males and females are very different in appearance. First, in size. Males (wingspan up to 45 mm) are much smaller than females, whose wingspan is up to 75 mm. Secondly, they also differ in color - the male is darker than the female. Its front wings are brownish-gray with transverse dark wavy stripes. Antennae feathery, abdomen thin. The female is off-white, with distinct zigzag stripes on the forewings. The abdomen is thickened, densely covered with brown-yellow hairs. Antennae thin, comb-like.
The biggest butterfly
This is butterfly sailboat Ornithoptera alexandrae from papua new guinea. The wingspan of females can be more than 280 mm, and the mass can be more than 25 g. Some butterflies have a wingspan of 32 cm and occupy an area of over 300 sq. Km. They can be considered the largest insects. Another large butterfly was caught in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on September 17, 2003. The wingspan of the insect is 22.6 centimeters. This is 26 millimeters more than that of a butterfly caught in Canada, which was previously considered the largest in the world. And although the giants of the insect world live in the tropics, in our country there are also large insects: swallowtail butterflies, some peacock-eyes and cocoonworms
The largest night butterfly
...This Cosdinoscera hercules, living in Australia and New Guinea, whose wingspan is 263.2 cm2, and their span is -280 mm. In 1948, a capture was reported in Innisfail, pc. Queensland, Australia, females with a wingspan of 360 mm. The world's largest night butterfly reaches 30 cm in size - this is the prince of darkness called Attacus atlas, in nature it is found in the Atlas Mountains. This butterfly is considered the star of the Honfleur Orangerie in Paris. The audience can watch her graceful dances among the real jungle grown under glass walls.
Wing fluctuations
The wings of insects are different, and they fluctuate at different frequencies. So, for example, a fly makes 330-350 strokes per second; a bee - 300 when it flies with honey, and 440 when it flies without cargo; bumblebees - 190-240 times per second flap their wings, and mosquitoes - 500-600 (some species even 1000 times); wasps - 250; horseflies - 100; dragonflies - 40-100; ladybug- 75; May beetle - 45; moths - 35-40; locust - 20.
The smallest butterfly
It lives in Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Arabia, tropical zone Asia and Australia, the length of the front wing of which is only 6 mm. She is active during the day.
The smallest night butterfly
...This Stigmella ridiculosa living in the Canary Islands. Among all 165,000 Lepidoptera species known to us, it is recognized as the smallest. The wingspan and body length are about 2 mm.
Who likes to eat
Among butterflies there are those whose caterpillars feed on wax and wool. These are wax moths and clothes, fur coat and other moths. But most butterflies live off wild plants.
Flight speeds of cabbage - 9 km / h
One-day flight speeds - 1.8 km / h
The sharpest scent
...in the male peacock's eye (Saturnia pavonia), which is able to smell the sexual attractant (pheromone) of a virgin female within a radius of 11 km. The female carries less than 0.0001 mg of this odorous substance, which turned out to be the highest alcohol (C16H29OH).
maternal worries
Having laid eggs, butterflies take care of their safety, some butterflies lay them in the soil, others fill the eggs with secretions of glands that harden in the air - a capsule is obtained, the capsules are usually masked to match the color of the surface. Another way is that insects cover the testicles with hairs or scales that are scraped from the abdomen.
caterpillars
They actively feed, grow and accumulate substances for the following transformations. During the growth of silkworm caterpillars increase their mass by 10 thousand times. Most caterpillars lead a free lifestyle, but some are attached to habitats: some live in the soil, others build apartments for themselves from leaves, and others live in fruits.
Monarch caterpillar
The furthest migration
Danaid butterflies. tagged female danaid butterflies Danaus plexippusi, released by Donald Davis in Preskill Park near Brighton, Ontario Ave, Canada on September 6, 1986, was recaptured at 3432 km, on a mountain near Anyangueo, Mexico, on January 15, 1987.
The shortest life
...at true mayflies (family Ephemmeroidae), which spends 2-3 years in the larval stage at the bottom of lakes and rivers, while adult butterflies live 2-3 days, sometimes even just a day.
Danaid hatching
The highest flight speed among insects
At cutworms ipsilon Agrotis ipsilon, butterflies with a wingspan of 45 mm, which can reach 97 and even 113 km / h. The flight speed of an insect depends on its mass, air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, air oxygen saturation, flight angle, and even habitat isolation. Reliable data are available regarding the flight speed of the cotton bollworm Helicoverpa zea - 28 km/h.
longest diapause
Butterfly yucca (yucca moth) from the family Prodoxidae has the longest diapause. Adult insects Yucca baccata (Agavaceae) from Nevada hatched from larvae after 19 years, all the while they were observed in the laboratory.
Yucca
internal clock
During their winter flight to Mexico, monarch butterflies determine the direction of their journey ... by internal clocks. In autumn, monarchs travel from central and eastern North America to Central Mexico. Since only every fourth or fifth generation of butterflies migrate, they migrate instinctively. Although scientists have established quite accurately that butterflies navigate with the help of the sun, much less was known about how they adapt to the movements of the sun during the day. Some researchers have suspected that part of the butterflies' solar compass is their circadian rhythm, the "internal clock." Scientists have determined that a common "clock gene" called per is an important part of the monarch butterfly's internal clock. Constant lighting disrupts the functioning of this gene. After a few days of living in the laboratory, where the length of the day was approximately equal to the natural one for autumn, the butterflies maintained the correct direction to the southwest. Butterflies, the light regime for which was shifted (lighting from 1 a.m. to 1 p.m.), chose the southeast. Those who were under constant illumination flew directly towards the sun - apparently, they had lost their sense of time.