A large diurnal butterfly from the nymphalidae family is found throughout the Palearctic. Its Russian name "mourning" is associated with the dark color of the wings. In America it is known as the "mourning robe". The butterfly appears in clearings, meadows and gardens with the first warm months of spring. She winters in reliable shelters, and when the sun warms up, she flies out to feed and procreate. The mourning butterfly is a real long-liver; the adult dies at the age of 11-12 months.
Appearance
Hide Announcement: Habitat Reproduction Duration and lifestyle Enemies and Interesting facts Flight time, Nutrition, Number
Butterfly larvae are black, with small white and large red spots. The insect itself is dark brown. Her wings have a large yellow border and small blue and blue spots. The size of the front wing reaches 40 millimeters, and the wingspan reaches 90 millimeters.
Features of character and lifestyle
Photo: Daytime mourning butterfly
With the onset of spring, butterflies emerge from secluded places, bask in the sun and look for food for themselves. In Russia they can be found only from July-August to October. When the nights become cool, insects begin to look for places to winter - cracks in stumps and trunks to protect themselves from the cold, basements of residential buildings.
The dark color of the wings helps insects easily hide in the grass. At the beginning of spring, only females can be found. They lay eggs and then die immediately. These individuals are capable of covering vast distances. Migration usually occurs in the fall in search of refuge.
Interesting fact: You can determine the cardinal directions by the mourning table. When a moth sits down to rest, it folds its wings and turns its back to the sun. In the morning the wings are turned to the east, at noon to the south, and in the evening they point to the west.
Mourning women appear in one generation. The subspecies have not been studied, but there are a lot of them. The brightness of their color depends on the time of year and habitat. When emerging from the cocoon in the spring, the insect will have a duller color. Immediately after birth they migrate. In hot weather, flights take several days. They depend on weather conditions.
Moths can live until June of next year, and in the mountains until August. In spring, butterflies live in places far from where they were born. In winter, many cannot withstand the frost and die. From the beginning of summer, the number of males predominates, then the inequality is eliminated.
Reproduction
The queen of the Amazons breeds once a year, but more than 100 eggs can be found in a clutch. Female insects attract males thanks to pheromones located in the back of the abdomen. The mating process for a butterfly is long and can last from 20 minutes to several hours.
Mating occurs in the places where they live. Caterpillars grow in the first 2 months of summer. Future arthropods have the same color as the larvae. The caterpillars mainly feed on birch, maple, ash, and rose trees.
What does the mourning butterfly eat?
Photo: Mourning Butterfly
Insects prefer overripe fruits - mainly plums and apples - to flower nectar. Moths are very attracted to the smell of sweet and sour fermentation. Clusters of these creatures can be found on damaged tree trunks on which tree sap has appeared. Butterflies especially like birch sap.
Having drunk the fermented juice, the moths become absent-minded and lose vigilance, so they become prey for birds and small rodents. Mourningbirds sit on flowers and field weeds. Creatures cannot obtain the lack of vitamins and microelements from pollen, so they make up for it from rotting carrion and animal excrement.
It is very important for moths to receive a sufficient amount of moisture, so it is vital for them to live near bodies of water. At the caterpillar stage, insects feed on food plants.
Their diet includes:
- hawthorn;
- rose hip;
- maple;
- Linden;
- alder;
- willow;
- poplar;
- nettle.
Often beautiful creatures can be found sitting on the ground near fruit-bearing trees, trying to feast on overripe fruits. They often choose cracked fruits so that they can easily extract the juice. Caterpillars spend most of their time searching for food. Before hibernating, they feed heavily, trying to eat as much vegetation as possible.
Experiments (stories of one boy)
One day I was wandering through the forest and came across an overgrown pond. Around this swamp I saw a mourning butterfly. I don’t know how, but in the thick of the grass I noticed a small cocoon, which I eventually brought home.
Having found a glass jar, I immediately made a dozen holes in it and put the cocoon I found in the forest there. A few weeks later, a winged insect hatched from this cocoon. Just as beautiful as those that were near that swamp. It was at this moment in my life that I saw how metamorphoses occur in nature.
Where does the mourning butterfly live?
Photo: Mourning butterfly from the Red Book
The species is widespread in the Palearctic. Moths are accustomed to life in temperate climates. Therefore, they cannot be found in tropical areas. Insects do not go further than 68 degrees north latitude. Mourning birds live in England, Norway, and Germany. Migrating individuals have been observed on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
The species is distributed in Japan, throughout Europe and Asia, North America, and northern Africa. Does not appear in Greece, southern Spain and on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Inhabits the Caucasus and Carpathian mountains, with the exception of the Black Sea coast. The species is absent on the Crimean Peninsula, but vagrant individuals can be found.
The insects were artificially brought to North America, and from there the butterflies spread from Mexico to Canada. Previously, the species lived throughout Europe, but after the end of World War II, their numbers declined sharply. In the tundra zone only migrating individuals are found, in forest-steppe and steppe areas - only in forest valleys.
With the onset of warm spring days, moths circle in clearings, gardens and meadows, the banks of reservoirs, and roadsides. For wintering, they look for reliable shelters, and when it gets warmer, they go outside to search for food and reproduce. They can be found at altitudes of up to 2000 m. Life expectancy under favorable conditions is up to one year.
Life cycle
After wintering, adults appear in April (sometimes March) and fly until mid-May. Insects with complete transformation go through 4 successive phases in life:
- egg;
- larva;
- chrysalis;
- imago.
By the end of May, mourning birds have time to mate and lay eggs, from which larvae emerge 3 weeks later. Small caterpillars form colonies on leaves, entwining them with silken webs. Larval development occurs in 5 stages or instars. Their change is characterized by molting - shedding and eating the old skin. With each age, the caterpillar becomes larger. In early July, the larvae pupate.
After 2 weeks, young individuals of a new generation emerge from the pupae. Having barely grown stronger, after 3-5 days they enter diapause. This state of rest and slowing down of life processes continues until the end of August. When butterflies wake up, they begin to actively feed in order to store enough energy for a long winter sleep. The favorite food of insects is rotten fruits, which, after ripening, fall to the ground in large quantities. The diet includes plums, pears, peaches, and apples. The butterfly enters a state of suspended animation with the onset of autumn. The mourner hides under the bark of trees, the forest floor, and seeks shelter in the cracks of outbuildings and in attics. What does a mourning butterfly look like in winter? It folds its wings behind its back and turns into a thin brown leaf. During wintering, some insects are eaten by natural enemies - birds and rodents. The life cycle of the mourning butterfly is 1 year.
Natural enemies of mourning butterflies
Photo: Mourning butterfly from the Beautiful Book
At all stages of development, the insect is surrounded by many enemies. Spiders, beetles or ants are not averse to eating moth eggs. Adults are affected by some species of birds, reptiles or small rodents. Although Lepidoptera have a camouflage color that turns them into a dried leaf, many individuals do not survive until spring, being discovered in shelters.
Caterpillars suffer from parasitic insects, Hymenoptera, which lay eggs directly in their bodies. Pests also lay eggs on food plants. Caterpillars eat leaves with clutches and parasitoids develop in the body of future butterflies, eating them from the inside. Riders are born already fully formed.
Parasites include ovoid, larval, ovolarval, pupal, and larval-pupal types. Some of them can paralyze the victim completely or certain parts of their body. Organisms live and develop at the expense of butterflies. As a result of their vital activity, lepidoptera die or become sterile.
Spiders and mantises hunt moths from ambush. They wait for beautiful creatures on flowers or catch them in their webs. Enemies include some species of wasps and ground beetles. Blackbirds and dragonflies hunt for mourning birds during flight. Toads and lizards lie in wait for butterflies on the ground and near water bodies.
NOT MOURNING AT ALL
The Russian name for the mourning table speaks for itself. And among many other peoples, the dark color of its wings is associated with mournful clothing. The English call this butterfly “mourning mantle”, the Poles call it “gardener-complainer”, and its French name means “mourning, grief, sadness”
The underside of the wings of this butterfly is also “velvet”, but is more modestly colored - dark with unclear streaks.
However, in reality, Antiope does not look gloomy at all. Yellow or white fringe and a row of lilac ovals along it make the butterfly very elegant. And the color of its wings is more likely cherry or violet-brown than black. They are covered with thick hairs, thanks to which they appear velvety and, with appropriate lighting from a distance, appear black. Males and females look almost the same, but the differences in the color of butterflies from different climatic zones are quite noticeable.
What are the main characteristics
The insect belongs to the nymphalidae family. In Latin – Nymphalisantiopa (Nymphalis antiopa). This is the second name of the insect, associated with Antiope - the queen of the Amazons from Greek mythology. The mourner is very beautiful, that’s why she was nicknamed that way.
The insect is large in size, the wingspan can reach 7–9 cm, and the length of the front wings can be from 3 to 4.5 cm. The individual only has a gloomy name, but she herself is very beautiful. In the photo you can see that the insect’s upper wings are dark brown. Along the winding edge there is a wide white stripe, from which small blue spots extend. The lower wings are black. The appearance of the butterfly (color) does not depend on gender; it is the same in females and males.
The insect's body is oval-shaped and has a brownish color that is close to black. There are long antennae on the head, and thin legs under the abdomen.
Admiral lemongrass urticaria
rattle beetle
Front wing length: 26 - 34.5 mm.
Forage plants - plants from the genus Thistle, Common Hops, Nettle.
Habitat: forest edges, clearings, roadsides, meadows, river banks, etc. Often observed in anthropogenic biotopes.
Butterfly Araskhnia Levana
A diurnal butterfly from the Nymphalidae family.
The female lays 1 egg on the leaves of food plants. Caterpillars have no longitudinal stripe on the dorsal side of the body; they have lateral yellow stripes, yellow dots and yellowish spines. Caterpillars develop from May to August. They live in the leaves of food plants rolled into a tube. The pupa is free and is attached with its head down.
The species is subject to dynamic fluctuations in numbers and in some years is observed in very large numbers. He is an active migrant. Populations in the forest belt are partially, and in the north of the range entirely replenished by migratory individuals from the south.
Included in the Red Book of the Noginsk region, the city of Elektrostal, Smolensk region, Russia (1997) (category 4).
Another name: Arashnia. Day butterfly.
Butterflies
The butterfly is one of the most mysterious creatures of nature. Such a wonderful transformation cannot be invented on purpose. From an unsightly larva emerges a real beauty with painted wings.
And it all starts with laying eggs. Eggs vary in shape, color and size. In some butterflies they resemble ordinary chicken ones in shape. One butterfly can lay several hundred eggs, from which caterpillars soon emerge. This worm-like insect must change its skin five times before the next stage in the butterfly's development begins. After this, the next period begins - the pupa. Under the strong chitinous shell hides a real butterfly, waiting in the wings. By the way, the pupa can be protected not only by chitin, but also by cobwebs, and sometimes also by leaves. But in some species of butterflies the pupa can even move its legs or crawl from place to place. And only after all this a butterfly is born. Butterflies, like humans, have 5 senses: smell, touch, hearing, taste, but the most acute is vision. The eyes of this small insect are a complex structure of an incredible number of small eyes. The butterfly smells using its antennae.
This winged insect does not have a complex circulatory system. In return, one vessel passes through the butterfly’s body. In general, the body consists of a head, chest and abdomen. The wings are covered with scales, the direction and location of which determines the color. There are quite a few breeds of butterflies. They differ not only in appearance but also in their requirements for the environment and food preferences.
Lemongrass butterfly
Lemongrass appears almost with the first rays of the spring sun. This butterfly spends a lot of time hibernating, but it also lives for about 13 months, which is a very long life by the standards of the life of these winged beauties. The lemongrass butterfly does not suffer from a reduction in the number of plants familiar to it, as it easily gets used to almost any food. The butterfly has a delicate lemon color. There is one red spot on the wings.
Butterfly hives
The hives butterfly is active from early spring until early June. Then, after a short break, urticaria appears again in July and is pleasing to the eye until mid-September. The butterfly got its name from the plant that serves as its main food, that is, from nettle.
The swallowtail butterfly is protected in many European countries as it is considered rare. The color is yellow with black lace along the edging of the upper wings. Two red spots framed in blue on the lower wings. The swallowtail lives mainly in steppes or semi-deserts. Usually produces 2 generations per year.
The admiral butterfly prefers forests and meadows to the sea, but because of the bright color associated with the admiral’s uniform, the winged beauty was awarded such a high rank. Favorite delicacies include blackberry and honeydew melon flowers. The admiral butterfly comes in two types: red and white.
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What are some interesting facts about insects?
The color of insects depends on the temperature at which the pupa developed. Therefore, when in cold climates, the wings darken. Blue spots may disappear altogether. After winter, the color at the end of the wings changes. If it was light yellow, it turns white.
Another feature of insects is to replenish the deficiency of microelements with the help of animal excrement and rotten remains. In addition, butterflies have a need for liquid, so they cannot survive without a reservoir.
