Of course, you know how a butterfly looks, but what does it like to eat, where does it live, how does it breed and, finally, how many legs does a butterfly have? All of these questions will surely lead many people into confusion. And that means you need to figure it all out.
Meet the butterfly!
Butterflies belong to the order of arthropods and, among other things, among invertebrates, these are the most highly developed creatures. There is probably no person who could indifferently look at a beautiful insect-like insect, which, moreover, has an amazing ability to undergo a complex metamorphosis, turning from a crawling insatiable caterpillar larva into an elegant winged creature.
Interestingly, back in the 19th century. caterpillars and butterflies were assigned to different types of insects, but lepidopterology (the science of butterflies) helped to put a lot in their places. By the way, now scientists are sure that almost 100 thousand species of butterflies remain unstudied.
Urticaria - herald of spring
Based on the example of a well-known urticaria, we will find out what butterflies are, how many legs they have and how their amazing transformations occur.
One of the most unique and at the same time common representatives of the Nymphalid family is the butterfly urticaria (Aglais urticae). It can be seen throughout North America, Europe, Russia, Asia, China and Japan. And she was named after the addiction of her caterpillar to one type of feed - nettle.
Male hives die in the fall, and fertilized females hibernate in crevices, sheds, basements, attics, and other secluded places, wrapping their bodies in wings like a blanket, and sometimes even freezing through and turning into pieces of ice.
This is one of the few butterflies wintering in the state of adults (adults). But already in the month of April, with the first rays of the sun, hives come out of hibernation and delight our eyes with bright black and orange spots against the background of the first green.
How butterflies feed and breed
In the spring, just the best way to consider the structure of butterflies. All about butterflies, or almost everything you can find out by observing hives and other early beauties - lemongrasses from the Belyanok family, which have bright lemon wings and got their name for this.
In the early spring, they still had nothing special to profit from, and the butterflies saved themselves with sweet birch sap. And in the summer, of course, they prefer fruit juice, nectar of asters and daisies (hives) or flowers of hawthorn (lemongrass).
True, other beauties may find animal feces or wet clay to be a special delicacy, which, as it turned out, are a supplier of trace elements necessary for the insect. And the scoops living in India and Malaysia are predators at all. They feed on the blood and tear fluid of large animals.
Female hives in May are looking for a suitable place for their eggs. And they find it, as you might guess, on the young shoots of nettles, less often on hops or hemp. Cabbage - prefer cabbage, and some species of butterflies scatter their testicles on the ground.
Female yellow-green, similar in shape to barrels, the female urticaria lays an uneven pile on the underside of the leaf, 150-200 pieces die and, after ten to twelve days, tiny caterpillars will appear from them.
What do the urticaria caterpillars look like?
Immediately after birth, the larvae eat an empty egg shell and braid the bottom of the leaf with a common network of cobwebs, under which they hide at night and in bad weather, and if the sun is shining, the caterpillars eat eagerly.
The larvae live in heaps, do not crawl far from each other, and sometimes eat their “house" - nettles - so that only veins remain from the leaves.
Studded with spiky outgrowths with short hairs, the bodies of the insatiable urticaria caterpillars, as a rule, have a brown, almost black color with double yellow longitudinal stripes. By the way, throughout their development, they, like the larvae of other butterflies, molt several times, changing the shell and thus increasing in size in a month by almost 2 cm.
And before finding out how many legs the butterfly has, let's count them in the larva. As with most of the caterpillars, urticaria have five pairs of abdominal legs (called false), as well as three pairs of thoracic legs - true. Of these, later, during pupation, the butterfly will develop its six legs, but the false legs are more of a device for holding the larva on a leaf. They are usually plump and short, decorated at the end with tiny hooks and hooks that act like Velcro fasteners.
From chrysalis to butterfly
Before pupation, the caterpillars become more isolated and cease their endless food process in order to find a place where it can be safely hooked. As a rule, this happens right there on the fodder plant, but sometimes the caterpillars creep up to 15 m to find a suitable place for themselves. It can be a fence, wall or other vertical surface.
On it, the caterpillar hangs upside down, secured with its glue, and when the skin slides off the larva, then in its place is a pupa that has an angular shape and is painted in brown or golden color, sometimes also with a beautiful pearly sheen.
After about three weeks, a butterfly with very short wings will hatch from such a chrysalis. For some time, she will sit, growing them (they become bigger just before our eyes!), And then will go on her first flight.
What does a butterfly look like?
What is the external structure of the butterfly? It can be conditionally divided into three parts: head, chest and abdomen. Large eyes and a pair of long antennae-antennas stand out on the butterfly’s head, which extend from the frontal part between the insect’s eyes and help him perceive odors, air vibrations, and keep his balance in flight.
On the bottom of the head, the butterfly has a mouthpart, in the form of a proboscis twisting into a spiral, formed by connected, but not fused, lower jaw lobes (they, by the way, are easily disconnected with a pin).
Through this proboscis, a butterfly, with the help of a blacksmith's pharyngeal pump similar to a blacksmith’s fur, draws nectar.
Why paws butterfly hives
And how many walking legs a hive butterfly has can be determined by properly examining it.
The chest of the butterfly is divided into three segments, each of which carries its own pair of legs. There are six butterflies in total. But the anterior pair in some species is rudimentary processes.
As walking such butterflies use only four paws. True, it should be noted that for all of them they mostly serve only for fixing on the surface, and not for walking, therefore they are equipped with a large number of special devices. And many butterflies have taste buds on their paws . And the insect will not start eating until it touches the sweet nectar with its limbs.
What do the urticaria paws look like?
The legs of the urticaria, like other butterflies, are called running. They are attributed to those in connection with the structural features. They, like other types of butterflies, are segmented and are divided into five segments, which are called the coxa, trochanter, thigh, tibia and tarsus. Paws are divided into five segments and have a pair of claws at the end.
Almost all butterflies have spurs (the so-called epiphysis) on the front tibia, which the insect uses to clean the antennae. True, for example, how many legs a moths butterfly has is difficult to answer, since its legs are almost completely reduced.
How the paws of butterflies are arranged
How many paws a butterfly has and what function they perform directly affects their structure.
- The first segment of the leg, the basin, is attached to the butterfly’s abdomen almost immovably, on the inside of which is attached a series of muscles that allow the foot to expand, bend and give its movement a certain amplitude.
- Between the basin and the thigh is the next segment - the trochanter. This is the smallest part of the foot, which provides its mobility. The role of a trochanter can be compared with that of a person performing a hip joint.
- The longest part of the foot bearing the main load is the thigh. It is the size of the thigh that determines what kind of legs belong to one or another limb in an insect. The thigh connects to the swivel motionlessly, but to the shin - using the mobile joint. It is called the knee.
- The tibia of the butterfly is almost the same length as the thigh, but its volume is less.
- The foot is the last segment of the limb of the urticaria. It consists of five parts and has a pair of claws at the end.
How many legs does a hive butterfly have to hear
A unique sign of Nymphalides, which include urticaria, is that these butterflies, unlike their relatives, use only two pairs of legs. The third - front - they are always pressed to the chest, shortened, devoid of claws and covered with brush-like hairs.
But on the shins of each of the remaining legs there are hairs that help to detect and amplify any vibration and instantly respond to danger. This is despite the fact that all butterflies do not possess hearing.