Watching the fluttering bright moths, so airy and beautiful, you involuntarily wonder: how many butterflies live? I would like such an unearthly miracle to be with us for a long, long time, illuminating our life with the thrill of its wings, which are all colored with rainbow colors. But, alas, the life of these creatures is regrettably short, especially if you consider a butterfly the last stage of a moth's life - in fact, its maturity and old age.
The life span of moths is affected by their species affiliation. After all, it is a question of a sensation, which is losing its relevance the next day - “a one-day butterfly”. However, the minimum period that nature gives for beauties with fluttering wings is still not a day, but 3-4 days. This is a species of butterfly called Lycaenidae. Compared with them, the danaida monarch - a true long-lived woman - she lives at the stage of winged creation from nine months to a year. But an ordinary resident of our latitudes, who inflicted so many losses on gardens as a caterpillar in childhood, the cabbage flutters for about two weeks.
If we decide the question of how long a butterfly lives globally, that is, if we begin to take into account all stages of its life cycle, then we will get a very diverse picture. For example, Vanessa spends 3-4 days in an egg, in the caterpillar stage, from five to ten days (depending on how much she eats and accumulates fat for transformation into a moth), sleeps in a pupa from a week to ten days, and turns into light-winged sissy for only two weeks. For this short period, Vanessa must find a representative of the opposite sex, mate with him, form eggs in her body, lay them down and die. Perhaps that is why female moths live several days longer than males - in order to have time to lay eggs?
Habitat, especially geographical latitude, plays an important role in how many butterflies live. However, despite the fact that moths, as we know, love heat and light, their life cycle is directly proportional to the degree of geographical latitude. Species living in arctic and subarctic latitudes can generally live up to two years, since poor food and a short time do not allow the larva to accumulate enough nutrients to turn into a winged insect, and an adult does not appear from the pupa next spring. The protracted “youth” allows the caterpillar to live another, extra year.
Migratory migrations, if any, also affect how many butterflies live. If insects make two migrations a year, then two generations are replaced during the summer: chrysalides (pupae) open in spring and at the end of summer. Wintering butterflies spend the longest period of their life precisely in the pupal stage: caterpillars envelop themselves with a cocoon in early autumn, and leave an unnecessary shell with the onset of steady heat. There are varieties that manage to winter in the caterpillar stage, for example, raspberry silkworm, but this is more likely an incident than a generally accepted rule. Usually, silkworms make a warm cocoon, for which they are bred by people to get natural silk.
But the thistle vanessa, daytime peacock eye and lemongrass can winter in the adult stage. Of course, the severity of the winter and the place they have chosen for their wintering influence how many butterflies live. Fierce cold can kill a gentle creature, and winter thaws or the warmth of human dwellings can remove the moth from the stage of suspended animation and it dies from exhaustion. If you want to extend the life of such a beautiful woman, you need to create her conditions as close as possible to those that she experiences in the adult stage: sufficient lighting, warmth (for tropical species, at least + 28), nectar-bearing plants. Then, despite the short life, she will leave you as a consolation to her descendants, who, generation after generation, will delight you with their rainbow flutter.