The Red Admiral butterflies can fly at night time and daytime. The butterflies will more likely hibernate during the winter months. They need to keep an eye out for large insects, bats, birds, and wasps, etc. that would like to have them as a meal.
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There are four steps that the Monarch butterflies go through. The First stage is in February and March. During that time, they will start looking for a mate and a good place to lay their eggs.
Second stage is in March and April. That is when the butterflies will lay their eggs on the milkweed plant. The Third stage is in May and June. It will be the third generation of the Monarch. The butterflies will live like the first generation. Looking for a mate and a milkweed plant to lay their eggs. They will have a short life span. Anywhere from about 15 to 50 days of life. In the fourth stage the monarch butterflies will be going through all the steps of the 3rd generations. There is one difference that the fourth generations have over the three generations of monarchs. They will migrate to Mexico where it is warmer to spend their winter months. There they will go through the three steps. The female will lay eggs on the milkweed plant leaves, and etc. The fourth generation will migrate back to the Eastern States, looking for milkweed plants. And so goes the cycle of life for the Monarchs. The Painted Lady butterflies can be found in many parts of the world. The butterflies live in warm climates. They can cover about 100 miles a day during their migration. They say that the painted lady can fly at times up to 30 miles per hour.
They do not migrate to warmer climates in the winter months like most other butterflies. When the weather turn cold they will die. The painted lady caterpillar’s favorite food plant is the thistle, a weed. The life span for a butterfly depends on several things. The size of the butterfly, the smaller butterfly doesn’t live as long as the larger butterfly. The climate that they live in. There are also insects and birds, etc. that they have to watch out for.
The butterflies are cold-blooded creatures. When the weather turns colder and the adult didn’t go south it will find a place to hibernate, waiting for warmer weather to come back. A butterfly could live longer then expected. It all depends on the weather and how old they are when winter sits in. About a month is the average life of a butterfly. The smaller butterflies will live close to a week. The Monarchs and Mourning Cloaks are a few of the butterflies that can live up to nine months. This is a large butterfly; their wing span can be from 3 to 4 inches wide.
There are four stages of life for a butterfly; the egg stage, caterpillar, chrysalis (pupa), and the last stage is the butterfly. It takes about a month from the time it is an egg to become a butterfly. The butterfly life span can range from 6 to 14 days. The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly is the state butterfly for the states of; Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia, and for Virginia it is the state insect. The butterfly is on a butterfly bush. The Monarchs are strong fliers, in the fall they start heading south. In some states they will start in October, as long as winter doesn’t start early there. They will either go to Mexico or Southern California; it depends which place is the closest for them to fly to.
They are the only know insects that will migrate to warmer weather in the winter months that is 2,500 mile or more away very year. I can see beauty in everything, old, or new. Like old butterflies, they may not fly as fast, but they can still fly, parts of their wings are torn, but they are still beautiful. Let’s look for what is beautiful in every living thing.
Here is a little information about the stages that a butterfly goes through to be a butterfly. A female butterfly will mate, then lay her eggs, after the eggs hatch they become caterpillars. As the caterpillar grows it will start shedding its skins, more like what a snake does. When they have shed their last skin they inter into a cocoon which is a protective shell and that is then called the pupa stage. Inside the pupa case, the caterpillar will then start transforming into a butterfly; it make take a couple of weeks or longer before it is ready to break out of its shell. The butterflies below are called Monarch. |
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Ella Clem