Butterfly Bonanza

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Butterfly Bonanza

• By Kris Light
• For The American Museum of Science and Energy

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Butterflies and Moths have scales on their wings

• Butterflies and moths are in the group of insects
  (order) called Lepidoptera, meaning
  scale-winged. There are an average of 2 million
  scales on the wings.
• The scales give the butterfly its color, help
  warm it in the sun, sometimes give them a bad
  taste and even help show if they are males or
  females. Some scales can reflect ultraviolet
  light (UV).

Butterfly scales magnified 30x
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What is the difference between butterflies and
moths?

• Butterflies fly only during the daytime. They
  have knobbed antennae, a thin abdomen, and often
  rest with their wings closed.
• Butterfly caterpillars are often smooth. They
  form a chrysalis when they are in the pupa stage
  of metamorphosis.

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Moths

• Moths usually fly at night, although some are
  seen during the daytime. Their antennae are often
  feathery. They often have a thick, fuzzy abdomen.
  They rest with their wings open. Their wings are
  often triangle-shaped.
• Moth caterpillars are usually fuzzy. They spin a
  silk cocoon before they go through the pupa
  phase.

Luna Moth
Milkweed Tussock Moth
Cocoon with eggs
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Butterfly or moth?
Viceroy butterfly
Tussock Moth
Io Moth
Skipper (butterfly)
Hummingbird Clearwing moth
Snout butterfly
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Butterfly eyes and mouth

• Like all insects, butterflies have hundreds of
  compound eyes.
• A butterflys mouth is in 2 parts that must be
  connected to become a coiled tube called a
  proboscis. Can you see the two parts in this
  picture?

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Butterflies taste with their feet!

• Butterflies taste their food and host plant
  leaves through their feet.
• Butterflies and moths eat nectar from flowers.
• Butterflies smell through their antennae.

A Painted Lady butterfly on clover
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Butterfly legs

• Some butterflies appear to have only 4 legs, but
  their front legs are so small they are hard to
  see.

Monarch butterfly front legs magnified at 30x
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Butterflies go through complete metamorphosis
Egg
Adult
Larva - caterpillar
Pupa - chrysalis
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Butterfly Metamorphosis

• After they mate, female butterflies lay their
  eggs on the leaves of the host plants that
  their caterpillars will eat. A monarch butterfly
  can lay as many as 700 eggs.

Monarch egg
Giant Swallowtail egg
Gulf Fritillary egg on Passionflower tendril
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Butterfly Caterpillars
Monarch caterpillar
Baltimore Checkerspot caterpillar
Viceroy Caterpillar
Black Swallowtail catepillar
Painted Lady caterpillar
Gulf Fritillary caterpillar
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Moth caterpillars
Flannel Moth
Eastern Tent Caterpillar
Io Moth
Saddleback caterpillar
Octagonal Case Bearer
Tomato Hornworm
Sycamore Tussock Moth
Milkweed tussock moth
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Chrysalis or pupa stage

• At the end of the caterpillars eating stage, a
  hormone causes it to enter the pupa stage called
  a chrysalis.
• The caterpillar sheds its skin the 5th and last
  time and it becomes a soup of cells that will
  reorganize to become a butterfly in 2 weeks.
• The chrysalis does not move or eat. Some
  butterflies spend the winter in the chrysalis
  stage before emerging in the spring.

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Larva or caterpillar stage
Newly hatched Monarch caterpillar 2 millimeters
long

• The egg hatches in about a week during the spring
  and summer, fall eggs may overwinter.
• Caterpillars eat, shed their skin (5 times), poop
  a LOT and grow for 2 weeks. They gain 3000 times
  their birth weight, you would be the size of a
  school bus and weigh as much as 2 elephants if
  you grew at that rate.
• Caterpillars eat only certain kinds of plants
  (monarchs eat only milkweeds)
• After they molt, (shed) they often eat their
  skin!
• Caterpillars are baby butterflies or moths,
  they cant lay eggs!

Newly molted Fritillary caterpillar
Fritillary caterpillar eating its molted skin
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A strange home

• During the caterpillar phase, the Bagworm larva
  bites off pieces of plants and adds them to the
  case as a form of camouflage. The caterpillar
  attaches the case to a branch when it gets ready
  to pupate. If the moth is a male he will emerge
  from the bag and fly away to find a female. The
  female moths are true "bag ladies," because they
  have no wings they are confined to their cocoons.

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Adult

• After 2 weeks of changing, the butterfly emerges
  from the chrysalis. It takes 1 2 hours for the
  butterflys wings to open and strengthen enough
  to fly.

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The Monarch Caterpillar

• Monarch caterpillars are brightly colored to warn
  birds and other predators not to eat them. They
  eat milkweed leaves which contain a poison, they
  store the poison in their bodies.
• The black feelers are called whiplashes, the
  ones by the head are longer. They have 3 body
  parts the head, thorax (with the 6 true legs)
  and the abdomen (with the 10 prolegs)

abdomen
thorax
head
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Cool Caterpillars and ways they protect
themselves!
Caterpillar with flowers on its back!
Octagonal casebearer Makes its home out of
frass (poop) and silk!
Gulf fritillary
Tomato Hornworm with wasp cocoons
Flannel Moth has venomous spines too!
Io Moth has venomous spines!
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Monarchs migrate to Mexico

• Monarch butterflies make an incredible journey to
  Mexico each fall. They migrate up to 2000 miles
  to spend the winter in the oyamel fir trees in
  the mountains of Mexico. The butterflies that
  live west of the Rocky Mountains migrate to the
  coast of California.
• There can be 56 million to nearly 230 million
  butterflies in the overwintering area.
• Each butterfly weighs 0.5 gram, but there can be
  so many (15,000 per branch) they can break the
  branches of the trees!
• 12 15 of the overwintering monarchs die from
  being eaten by birds, mice, or insects cold
  weather being hit by cars

http//www.fs.fed.us/monarchbutterfly/migration/in
dex.shtml
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Monarch tagging

• Scientists tag monarch butterflies in the autumn
  to see where they migrate from.

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Butterfly Waystations

• Monarch butterflies need areas with lots of
  nectar plants where they can fuel up for their
  long fall flight. Roan Mountain State Park in
  upper east Tennessee has been designated a
  Monarch Waystation.
• Here Dr. Lincoln Brower, a world-famous butterfly
  researcher, dedicates the park with this sign.

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Other Monarch Migraine causes!

• Monarchs face other dangers including
• Loss of habitat and food plants
• Parasites
• Bacterial and viral diseases

Tachnid fly laying eggs on a katydid
Parasitized chrysalis