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Nature: Did You Know Student

The document discusses butterflies and moths, their life cycles and key differences. It provides facts about butterflies and suggests places and activities for viewing butterflies, including a children's museum exhibit, butterfly garden and annual butterfly count.

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Hartford Courant
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167 views1 page

Nature: Did You Know Student

The document discusses butterflies and moths, their life cycles and key differences. It provides facts about butterflies and suggests places and activities for viewing butterflies, including a children's museum exhibit, butterfly garden and annual butterfly count.

Uploaded by

Hartford Courant
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Connecticut

NATURE Common Core State Standard


ELA Reading Informational Text (Grades 3-6) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3-6.1 and CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3-6.2

BUTTERFLIES
Text and graphics provided by Jay Kaplan, Roaring Brook Nature Center
Butterflies and Moths
Butterflies and moths belong to the group of insects known as Lepidoptera. Butterflies and moths are unique within the insect world because their wings are covered with
overlapping scales. Most people think of butterflies as large, beautiful insects that feed on the nectar of flowers, whereas moths are small, brown insects that come to a porch
light at night. However, some butterflies are small and brown, while some moths are big and brightly colored like the Luna Moth. Some moths, like butterflies, fly during the day.
Butterflies and moths can be told apart by the shape of their antennae. The tips of a butterfly’s antennae are thickened or clubbed. Moth antennae are thread-like or feathery and
taper to a sharp point. Butterfly caterpillars make a chrysalis while moth larvae (caterpillars) usually spin a cocoon.

Metamorphosis
The life cycle of a butterfly includes four stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult. The process by which a butterfly changes from a larva to an adult is known as
metamorphosis. Metamorphosis means change. (Think also about the change from tadpole to frog.)

Fun Butterfly Facts


• There are approximately 24,000 butterfly species ranging from 1/4 inch to a wingspan of more a foot. The smallest butterfly in the world is the Sinai baton blue butterfly found
only in a corner of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. The world’s largest butterfly is Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing of Papua New Guinea. It is an endangered species suffering from loss of
habitat and collecting by butterfly collectors.

• Some butterflies can fly at a speed of 12 mph. Here in Connecticut, anglewings, like the Comma and Question Mark are among the fastest species.

• Butterflies “taste” with their feet.

• Like all insects, butterflies have their skeleton on the outside of their bodies. This is called an exoskeleton. It protects the butterfly and prevents it
from drying out.

• Fossil butterflies have been found dating from the Eocene period, some 40-50 million years ago!

Where and when to see butterflies


Butterflies can be found in any environment in which there is nectar on which to feed. This includes Hartford city parks, backyard flower gardens,
community gardens, or suburban abandoned fields.

Student
Did You Know
The Mystery of the Monarchs
Monarch butterflies that hatch in Connecticut in late summer travel to
mountains near Mexico City, a distance of some 2,000 miles. In the cool
Activity
Visit The Children Museum’s “Winged Wonders” exhibit. The exhibit will open for the
mountains, the butterflies rest quietly through the winter. In late winter/early season in late May and includes native species in a large 120+ square foot outdoor
spring, they begin their return migration northward reaching the Gulf Coast enclosure where butterflies may be observed feeding on nectar from a wide variety of
states where they mate, lay eggs and then die. It takes several additional native and common garden plants.
generations for monarch butterflies to reach Connecticut and the other New
England states. These butterflies lay eggs and die, and it is their offspring Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton maintains a large butterfly garden where over 60
that, sight unseen, begin the long migration to Mexico in late summer. species have been seen since the garden’s inception in 2002. The garden is active June
through September.
There is now concern for the future of the monarchs due to unregulated
logging on their wintering grounds, changes in weather patterns, the loss On July 12th, the Nature Center will sponsor the annual Farmington Valley Butterfly
of summer open field habitat to development, and use of pesticides on their Count. Call the Center at 860.693.0263 to learn how you can participate in this activity.
nectar sources.
Plant a butterfly garden in your yard that includes nectar plants to provide food for adult
butterflies and also “host” plants on which butterflies lay their eggs. Most butterflies
will lay their eggs on only one or a few different kinds of plants as their caterpillars
(larvae) only feed on certain plants.

Use a butterfly field guide or the internet to try to identify different species of local but-
terflies in your neighborhood or at a local park.

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