BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS
Moths and butterflies are members of the order of Lepidoptera, which in Greek means scale (lepido) and wing (ptera). Scale is a reference to the millions of tiny overlapping scales, actually modified hairs, the cover the insects’ wings. Although there are many exceptions, moths generally fly at night and butterflies fly during the day. Both kinds of insects begin as caterpillars and emerge from cocoons, and are important pollinators and food sources for birds and other creatures, About 150,000 Lepidoptera species are known to science. Butterflies make up less than 17 percent of the Lepidoptera. The rest are moths.
Moths tend to be brown or grey or another drab color (although some are quite colorful) and are active mostly at night. Their antennae are shaped like miniature double-edged combs. The swallowtails form their won family, the Papilionidae, within the Lepidoptera. This family contains over 500 species worldwide, of which the common yellow swallowtail is the best known.
Lepidopterists are entomologists that study butterflies and moths. The British Museum has the world’s largest butterfly collection, with about 8.5 million specimens. The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Environmental Research and the Peabody Museum at Harvard also have large collections. North American Butterfly Association is a group engaged in butterfly conservation.
RELATED ARTICLES:
NABOKOV AND BUTTERFLIES factsanddetails.com
ATLAS MOTHS factsanddetails.com ;
FLYING INSECTS: FLIES, DRAGONFLIES, FIREFLIES factsanddetails.com ;
INSECTS: CHARACTERISTICS, DIVERSITY, USEFULNESS, THREATENED STATUS factsanddetails.com ;
KINDS OF INSECTS: MANTIDS, CICADAS AND ONES THAT KILL HUMANS factsanddetails.com
Book:”The Dangerous World of Butterflies” by Peter Laufer. Entomologist Arthur Shapiro is a butterfly expert that has written many books about butterflies.
Websites and Resources on Butterflies: Butterfly Website butterflywebsite.com ; Butterfly Info greennature.com ; BugGuide bugguide.net ; Butterfly Photos floridanaturepictures.com/butterflies ; Lepidoptera Resources chebucto.ns.ca/Environment/NHR/lepidoptera ; Websites and Resources on Insects and Bugs: BugGuide bugguide.net ; Amateur Entomologists' Society amentsoc.org ; MDPI Insects mdpi.com/journal/insects; National Geographic on Bugs National Geographic ; Smithsonian bug info si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo ; Insect Images.org insectimages.org ; Obervations, the Naturalist inaturalist.org/observations ; Safrinet Manual for Entomology and Arachnology SPC web.archive.org
Websites and Resources on Animals: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; BBC Earth bbcearth.com; A-Z-Animals.com a-z-animals.com; Live Science Animals livescience.com; Animal Info animalinfo.org ; Encyclopedia of Life eol.org , a project to create an online reference source for every species; World Wildlife Fund (WWF) worldwildlife.org the world’s largest independent conservation body; National Geographic National Geographic ; ; Endangered Animals (IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) iucnredlist.org ; Biodiversity Heritage Library biodiversitylibrary.org
Butterfly Characteristics
For the most part butterflies are colorful and active during the day and have antennae that look likes clubs. Many species of butterfly have brightly-colored wings. The bright colors of butterfly wings and some caterpillars advertize the fact that eat toxic plants and are poison to potential predators. Many butterflies see in ultraviolet light and possess wings that display ultraviolet shades.
Butterflies use their antennas to navigate. Scientists have determined this by painting the antennae of monarch butterflies black and found the butterflies couldn’t orient themselves southward and so got lost during their migration from North America to Mexico. Like most creatures, monarch butterflies have a circadian clock in their brain that helps them know where they are and adjust their orientation when they migrate south. Monarchs also have a second clock in their antennae, which senses light and is crucial to finding their way.
Butterfly Feeding and Mating
Adult butterflies feed on nectar while either perched or hoovering above a flower, by thrusting their long proboscis deep inside the nectar glands of the flower. When not in use the proboscis rolls up under the head of the butterfly like a tiny garden hose. Many types of flowers such as lilies have co-evolved with butterflies. These generally have a deep tubular structure, with stamens and pistils thrust far out in such a way that they deposit pollen on a insects’s head while it feeds on nectar.
For a butterfly feeding is just a diversion. The caterpillar spent most of his life filling the niche of eating, growing and developing. The primary duty of the butterfly is to mate. The male genitalia of certain butterflies rely on light-sensing cells to make sure they aren’t ejaculating into the open air.
The primary duty of the butterfly is to mate. After receiving sperm from her mate, the female deposits her eggs on the stems and leaves of plants. The eggs hatch into larvae, called caterpillars. Many species lay their eggs on specific plants which the caterpillars feed on when they hatch. After ejaculating sperm some butterflies produces a kind of wax which seals the female's orifice and prevent competitors from impregnating the female.
Butterfly Wing Colors and Markings
Butterfly wings are covered with microscopic scales that are key to giving them color. The incredible range of tones and shades are achieved by combining simple colors in different proportions, much like a digital color printer. Some scales even have ridges that diffuse and refract light, producing iridescent and metallic hues that change dramatically as the insect moves. [Source: Kevin Short, Daily Yomiuri]
Some butterflies and moths have large circular, high-contrast marks on their wings that were long though to be mimicking the eyes of predators’ of the butterfly’s own enemies. According to research by Martin Stevens of the University of Cambridge that does not seem to be the case. Rather the predators are simply avoiding the conspicuous marks and striking patterns as such marks and patterns are often an indicator of toxic substances. Stevens and his team tested their hypotheses by creating artificial butterflies from meal worms with paper “wings” with eye markings as well as wings with rectangles, numbers and single large spots and found that wild birds devoured the worms with shapes and numbers to the same degree as those with eyes. Why then do to the eye markings appears? It may have something to do with the way the wings develop.
Moths
Moths make up about 80 percent of order that includes moths and butterflies. Moths come in a starling variety of colors and patterns. Their colors equal or maybe even exceed those of butterflies but are not as well appreciated because moths are generally smaller and mostly active only at night.
Moths are a favorite prey of birds. To avoid birds moths try to blend in with their background during the day when birds are active and fly around at night. Moths have other unique features. They don’t get caught in spider webs, because the scales in their wings get stuck to the web simply break away from the wing and the moth is able to make his getaway. Some species of moth have a long slender tube that is attached to their mouth and this is used to suck nectar from flowers.
In the 1960s scientists studying moth eyes at the nano scale level discovered that their multi-faceted surface is structured to reduce reflection. Engineers in Freiburg, Germany used lasers to sculpt similar surfaces on a photosensitive lacquer film. Computer screens covered with the film, covered 16 million “dots,” gave off virtually no glare.
The death’s head moth is moth is a hawk moth with thorax markings that resemble a skull. The killer in the film “Silence of the Lambs” collected these moths. Vampire moths "occasionally drills into a human victim, causing a few hours of itchy irritation".
The luna moth is big moth with wingspan that can exceed 10 centimeters. Its life span is rather short however: only a week or two of spending much of its time trying not be eaten by birds and bats while trying to find a mate. Their luminous green color begin to fade almost immediately after they are caught.
An unusual species of white orchid found in Madagascar holds nectar at the extreme end of a foot long spur. Darwin postulated in the 19th century that there must be a species of moth with an 11 inch proboscis that could reach the fluid and pollinate the flower. Even though he was scoffed at by other scientists 40 years later a night flying moth was discovered in the island with a 12 inch tongue.
Moths Aren’t Drawn to Light at Night, They’re Confused By It
At night, it’s not unusual to see a bunch of moths and other insects flying around a porch light or street lamp. It has long been assumed they were attracted to the light like “moths to a flame.” But that is not the case. Instead they are trapped in a disorienting orbit around the artificial light, according to study published January 30, 2024 in the journal Nature Communications. [Source: Taylor Nicioli, CNN, February 8, 2024]
Taylor Nicioli of CNN wrote: By using motion-capture cameras — and filming with infrared illumination so as not to disrupt the creatures’ vision — the researchers showed that when the insects flew around a light source, they were tilting their backs toward the light and keeping their bodies in that direction. By maintaining this orientation, the hapless critters created odd orbits and steering patterns, according to the study.
When artificial light does not interfere, nocturnal insects keep their backs pointed toward whatever direction is brightest, which is typically the sky versus the ground. This evolutionary trick has helped the critters know which way is up and keep them level during their night flights. However, when the insects pass by an artificial light source, they become disoriented, believing that the human-made lighting is the sky, said co-lead study author Samuel Fabian, an entomologist and postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London’s department of bioengineering.
“Insects in the air don’t inherently know which way is up, they don’t have a very good way of measuring that. … It’s assuming the light is the direction of up, but it’s wrong. And if you tilt, that’s going to create sort of weird steering patterns, in the same way that if you were riding a bike and you tilt over to one side, you’re going to get to steer in a big circle, it’s all going to go a bit funky,” Fabian said.
The study team compiled hundreds of slow-motion videos capturing the behaviors of butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, dragonflies and damselflies, and found that the critters were not attracted to faraway lights. The insects only appeared to be drawn in when passing a light that was nearby. Consistently, the overwhelming majority of study subjects tilted their backs toward the light, even if doing so prevented sustained flight.
“Maybe when people notice it, like around their porchlights or a streetlamp, it looks like they are flying straight at it, but that’s not the case,” said co-lead study author Yash Sondhi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History, in a news release. Sondhi contributed to the research while a doctoral student of biology at Florida International University in Miami.
The team observed three common responses to the light source made by the insects, including orbiting the light, stalling — which caused the insect to steeply climb above the light — and inverting, in which the insect flipped over and crashed into the ground. Some fast-flying insects, such as dragonflies, remained in orbit for minutes at a time, going swiftly round and round the light fixture, Fabian said. In one experiment, the researchers emulated the night sky by shining a light on a white sheet oriented above and found the insects were able to navigate under it without issues. If the insects were inherently seeking the light, they would have crashed into the sheet, Fabian said. “The behaviors of flying insects in the presence of artificial light close to the ground are non-uniform and surprisingly complex in a way that had not really been documented well previously,” said Floyd Shockley, the collections manager for the department of entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
Caterpillars
Caterpillars are butterfly and moth larvae. After they emerge from an egg they do little but eat, move to another place to eat and grow. The usually feed on leaves. As they grow they molt their old skin. When the caterpillars are full grown they builds cocoons (chrysalis). After several week or months a butterfly or moth breaks out the cocoon. Describing a cabbage caterpillar, the famed French entomologist Jean Henri Fabre wrote: “What an appetite! What a stomach!...To eat and digest, to accumulate reserves for the upcoming transformation into a butterfly, that is a caterpillar’s one and only business.”
Caterpillars can be quite damaging to plant life, consuming all the leaves on a bush or tree. They in turn are a major food source for birds and large predatory insects. Because they sit in plain sight munching away they are easy targets. Many have developed defenses such as camouflage, mimicry, poisons and sharp spines for defense.
Caterpillars are marked with a wide range of colors and patterns and incredible combinations of stripes and spots in shades of red, yellow and orange. Sometimes the caterpillars are more colorful than the butterflies they spawn. . Many species have “eye-spots.” These may help to scare away predators but they also serve a physiological function: they are part of the insects’ spiracles, which help the insect to breath.
Caterpillars’ colors, shapes, and behavior are their tools for survival. Eyespots and bark- or leaflike camouflage help the larvae blend in with their surroundings; spines or barbs that are venomous — or that at least look menacing — may deter predators.[Source: The Independent, December 9, 2011
Caterpillar Characteristics
Most caterpillars have simple eyes that can only distinguish light and dark and sharp mandibles for cutting up leaves into bite-size pieces of food. The overwhelming bulk of a caterpillars is taken up by its 10-segment abdomen, which houses the creature’s awesome digestive system, which is essentially one long intestine.
Caterpillars often feed on leaves and the patterns they make on leaves are telltale signs of their presence. Birds like to feed on plump caterpillars and often fly over trees looking at leaves for evidence of caterpillars which they can feed on. As a countermeasure to this the Geometridae caterpillar cuts the leaves it eats carefully around the edges, moving in and out so the contour of the leaf keeps it form and just gets smaller and smaller.
Some caterpillars have sharp spines tipped with poison that can deliver a nasty sting. But these species are few in number and easy to tell apart. The vast majority of caterpillars neither bite nor sting. Caterpillars are sometimes confused with multi-legged centipedes and millipedes, which are often poisonous, because caterpillars appear to have eight pairs of legs. A closer look however reveals the front three pairs are true legs and the rear “legs” and are just fleshy protuberances, called prolegs or “false legs,” that help the caterpillar grip the surface of a branch or leaf.
Diseases Related to Toxic Caterpillar Hairs
Terrence D. Fitzgerald wrote in Natural History magazine: An epidemic of itchy, burning rashes, irritated eyes, and sore throats struck Belgium in the spring of 2007. Victims’ reactions were severe enough to rally firefighters and dozens of troops — armed with gas-flame torches — to scour the northern countryside in search of the culprits. That summer a similar outbreak in west London set people to coughing and scratching, and the U.K. forestry commission launched its own extreme counterattack to blunt a recurrence this year. [Source: Terrence D. Fitzgerald, Natural History magazine]
What’s responsible? Fuzzy caterpillars. Oak processionary caterpillars (Thaumetopoea processionea), to be exact: they wreak havoc on anybody unlucky enough to cross their path. Considered tree pests as well, because they defoliate oaks, oak processionaries sport an armament of poisonous hairs. The fine, stiff, sharp-pointed bristles readily penetrate skin, releasing a toxin on contact from their hollow cores. In response to the toxin, thaumetopoein, a victim’s body releases histamine, which raises itching, red welts. Particularly sensitive people can suffer a much more serious, life-threatening reaction termed anaphylaxis.
Surprisingly, few of the victims in the outbreaks actually touched or saw the caterpillars. The hairs can be unavoidable on a windy day, floating invisibly in the air for more than a mile. High concentrations of the airborne hairs are common because the caterpillars live in large sibling groups — often of a hundred or more — and can achieve high population densities. The caterpillars move about in head-to-tail bodily contact, forming snakelike lines as long as twenty feet, a peculiar form of collective locomotion termed processioning. While this is an effective means of staying together, brazen marches render the insects conspicuous to predators, requiring strong defense against attack. Hence, the hairs — lots of them.
People all over the world have come into contact with the dozens of species of processionaries that have evolved around the world. In West Africa, for instance, inhabitants have eaten the Anaphe caterpillar for many generations. They deal with the hairs by singeing them as the caterpillars are roasted over a fire. Eating one or two of the tasty caterpillars is of no concern. But making regular meals of them, it turns out, often leads to serious symptoms: difficulty in speaking, impaired consciousness, rolling eyes, staggering, and tremors. Only recently has it been established that thiaminase, an enzyme in the caterpillar’s body, destroys the victim’s vitamin B1. The resultant vitamin deficiency, now known as seasonal ataxia, was responsible for about 70 percent of?hospital admissions in Ikare, Nigeria, in August 1993. Fortunately, the symptoms disappear quickly with vitamin supplements.
The most dangerous of the processionaries is the South American Lonomia. In Brazil, a seventy-year-old woman suddenly fell into a coma after she placed a slipper on her foot. Hidden within was a Lonomia caterpillar. Doctors found lesions on her left foot where hairs had penetrated her skin. The toxin had triggered intracerebral hemorrhages, from which she died seven days later. More and more people are being exposed to the hazard because of deforestation and a decline in the caterpillar’s natural enemies. An antilonomic serum, if injected in a timely manner, can save victims’ lives.
Central America has suffered in recent years from female moths in the processionary genus Hylesia. The moth, like that of some other species of processionaries, has poisonous spicules on its abdomen, allowing it to carry on the nasty business of its childhood. In 2005, Trinidad shut down offshore oil rigs when the moths fluttered about lights that burned through the night; the spicules broke from their abdomens, drifted invisibly through the air, and fell onto the exposed skin of the victims.
For the complete article from which the material here is derived see “Lethal Fuzz” By Terrence D. Fitzgerald, Natural History magazine nhmag.com
Nabokov on the Caterpillar to Butterfly Transformation
Caterpillars pass through five larval stages, or instars, before metamorphosing into adults. The caterpillar often changes its markings, patterns and colors and looks like a completely different species in its different stages. All caterpillars have glands capable of producing silk, which are usually used to make a cocoons. The silkworm is a caterpillar for a kind of moth. In Hawaii, a flesh-eating caterpillar was discovered that traps its prey — mostly snails — with silken threads like a spider.
In a lecture on caterpillars and butterflies at Cornell in 1951,Vladimir Nabokov told his students, “Though wonderful to watch, the transformation from larvae to pupa... is not a particularly pleasant process for the subject involved. There comes for every caterpillar a difficult moment when he begins to feel pervaded by an odd sense of discomfort. It is a tight feeling — here about the neck and elsewhere, and then an unbearable itch. Of course he has molted a few times before, but “that” is nothing in comparison to the tickle and urge he feels now. He must shed that tight dry skin, or die. As you have guessed under that skin, the armor of a pupa — and how uncomfortable to wear one’s skin over one’s armor — is already forming.”
“The caterpillar must do something about that horrible feeling. He walks about looking for a suitable place. He finds it, he crawls up a wall or a tree-trunk. He makes for himself a little pad of silk on the underside of that perch, he hangs himself by the tip of his tail or last legs, from the silk patch, so as to dangle head downwards in the position of an inverted question-mark, and there “is” a “question” — how to get rid of his skin. One wriggle, another wriggle — and zip the skin bursts down the back and he gradually gets out of it working with shoulders and hips like a person getting out of sausage dress. Then comes the most critical moment — You understand that we are hanging head down by our last pair of legs, and the problem now is to shed the whole skin — even the skin of those last legs by which we hang — but how to accomplish this without falling?”
“So what does he do this courageous and stubborn little animal who already is partly disrobed. Very carefully he starts working out his hind legs, dislodging them from the patch of silk which is dangling, head down — and then with an admirable twist and jerk he sort of jumps “off” the silk pad, sheds the last shred of hose, and immediately in the process of the same jerk-and-twist jump he attaches himself anew by means of a hooks that was under the shred of skin on the tip of his body. Now all the skin has come off, thank God, and the bared surface, now hard and glistening, is the pupa, a swathed-baby-like thing hanging from that twig — a very beautiful chrysalis with golden knobs and a plate-armor wingcases. This pupal stage lasts from a few days to a few years.”
On the transformation from pupa to butterfly Nabokov told his students, “After two or three weeks something begins to happen. The pupa hangs quite motionless but you notice one day that through the wingcases, which are many times smaller than the wings of the future perfect insect — you notice that through the horn-like texture of each wingcase you can see in miniature the pattern of the future wings, the lovely flush of the ground color, a dark margin in a rudimentary eyespot.”
“Another day or two — and the final transformation occurs. The pupa splits as the caterpillar had split — it really is the last glorified mouth, and the butterfly creep out — and in its turn hangs down from the twig to dry. She is not handsome at first. She is very damp and bedraggled. But those limp implements of hers that she had disengaged, gradually dry and distend, the veins branch and harden — and in 20 minutes or so she is ready to fly . You have noticed that the caterpillar is a “he”, the pupa is “it” and the butterfly is “she”. You will ask — what is the feeling of hatching? Oh, no doubt , there is a rush of panic to the head, a thrill of breathlessness and strange sensations, but then the eyes sees a flow of sunshine, the butterfly sees the world, the large and awful face of the gaping entomologist.”
See Separate Article: NABOKOV AND BUTTERFLIES factsanddetails.com
Threats to Butterflies and Moths
According to Reuters: Many moth and butterfly populations are also struggling due to habitat loss as well as pesticides and herbicides. As of 2010, nearly a third of Europe’s native butterfly species were declining, and 81 of the continent’s 482 species were considered threatened or near threatened, according to the IUCN. [Source Julia Janicki, Gloria Dickie, Simon Scarr and Jitesh Chowdhury, Reuters. December 6, 2022]
In the western United States, the number of individual butterflies has been steadily decreasing over the past four decades, at a rate of around 1.6 percent every year, according to a March 2021 study in the journal Science. The iconic Monarch butterfly is one of the species in trouble. Warmer autumn temperatures, an effect of climate change, may be interfering with the butterflies’ hibernation-like period known as diapause. So rather than slowing down ahead of winter, the insects are staying awake longer, expending more energy, and eventually starving to death, scientists say. In July, the migratory monarch was added to the IUCN’s global endangered species list.
In the “The Dangerous World of Butterflies”, journalist Peter Laufer describes the sordid underworld of butterfly hobbyists in which “nefarious collectors fuel criminal butterfly poachers worldwide.” The Butterfly Breeders Association is a group that caters to the needs of butterfly collectors and is regarded as the enemy by the North American Butterfly Association, a conservation group.
The range of many butterfly species in temperate areas in shifting northward with global warming being the prime suspect of being behind the move. One study of 35 species of non-migratory butterfly in Europe found that two thirds of the species had shifted their home ranges by 45 to 240 kilometers northward.
Butterfly Trade in Indonesia
Ground zero for the international butterfly trade is Indonesia. The rules and practices for capture and trade of these fragile insect are complex and the rewards for those involved can range from a few cents to thousands of dollars. A catcher on Bacan island, Indonesia sells the butterflies he catches in Bali. From there the insects are exported throughout Asia and on to collectors worldwide. On Sulawesi island, one of Indonesia’s major island, butterflies are an important source of income. Families often tend their crops during one season and catch butterflies in another. Women there carefully package the butterflies they catch in handmade envelopes. Dealers often pay children to find and trap butterflies. The children work from morning until midafternoon, when the insects are most active. They sell their catch for a pittance. [Source: Matthew Teague, National Geographic, August 2018]
Matthew Teague wrote in National Geographic: Jasmin sells them either at the market in Bantimurung or to a man in Jakarta — an Indonesian butterfly boss — who then sells them to dealers around the world. By the time a blumei’s final seller mounts the butterfly in a display case, it might go for close to a hundred dollars. Other species — internationally protected species — sell for astronomical prices. The idea of trading in butterflies sounds quaint, almost Victorian, but the internet has enabled the modern market. In 2017 British authorities, for the first time, convicted a man for capturing and killing a large blue, one of the United Kingdom’s rarest butterflies. Investigators linked Phillip Cullen to an online auction account.
“Jasmin’s father caught butterflies before him, starting in the early 1970s. They lived in a village called Bantimurung, which Alfred Russel Wallace, the great British naturalist, had visited a century earlier. He described Bantimurung as “a beautiful sight, being dotted with groups of gay butterflies — orange, yellow, white, blue, and green — which on being disturbed rose into the air by hundreds, forming clouds of variegated colors.”
“The father’s technique was rudimentary. He caught whatever creatures floated near the family home and offered them to foreigners who visited the island. Soon the foreigners who came seemed to know more about the butterflies than local people did. For example, when Jasmin was young, a French collector showed him a glass bell in which he trapped butterflies with a bit of ether. “A killing jar,” Jasmin says. A government project forced his family to move soon after that, he says, but that peculiar jar stayed in his imagination: the motion of the butterflies, and how easily they slipped into stillness.
For the complete article from which the material here is derived see “Inside the Murky World of Butterfly Catchers” by Matthew Teague, National Geographic nationalgeographic.com
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: Mostly National Geographic articles. Also David Attenborough books (Princeton University Press), New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Natural History magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.
Last updated December 2024