Interesting facts from the life of butterflies for children. The most amazing facts about butterflies

Since time immemorial, butterflies have been associated with spring, beauty, and eternity. They were a symbol of immortality, happiness, fidelity, love, and some newlyweds in modern time release butterflies at the wedding instead of doves. These mysterious and undeniably beautiful creatures are a source of poetic inspiration and have become the heroes of many myths and legends.

Recently, my granddaughter and I did the “Butterfly” craft from plasticine, which you can see. And today we will try to tell the children about butterflies in more detail.

The most beautiful, most elegant, most beloved insects are butterflies. As soon as the sun warms and the flowers bloom, they begin to flutter from flower to flower and immediately catch our eye. Children enjoy watching them. They excite them. Many fairy tales depict good fairies, elves with wings like butterflies. They are a symbol of kindness, purity and light.

Previously, people believed that butterflies were descended from plants that had come off.

How can you tell children about butterflies?

The appearance of butterflies.

Consider the structure of a butterfly with the children. The butterfly has a head, body, wings covered with scales. The scales refract light, shimmering like a rainbow, forming a beautiful pattern. Tell your child that butterflies should not be caught or touched by the wings. You can remove the paint. In fact, butterfly wings are transparent, like those of a bee or a fly. And scales give color. Therefore, they are called Lepidoptera. Coloring is very different. We see it both in nature and in pictures. Sometimes the coloration is protective.

The butterfly has antennae and a coiled proboscis. When a butterfly lands on a flower, it unfolds its proboscis, puts it inside the flower and drinks the nectar. If a butterfly flies from flower to flower, it will carry pollen and the pollinated plants will have more seeds.

Butterfly life cycle.

Butterflies are insects with complete metamorphosis. Life cycle consists of 4 stages. Egg-larva (caterpillar) - pupa and adult butterfly.

Butterflies lay eggs, which then hatch into caterpillars. They are unattractive, actively eat the leaves of plants, grow rapidly. This causes damage to plants. Caterpillars come in different colors, colors, some are smooth, others with hairs. When the caterpillar phase ends, it turns into a chrysalis. The pupa is usually brown and immobile. The pupal stage lasts from several days to several years. And then the chrysalis bursts and a butterfly emerges from it. She first sits and dries her wings. And then it starts to fly. This is the transformation of a butterfly.

Children often see caterpillars, they are unpleasant.

Riddles about caterpillars.

Tell the children riddles about caterpillars. You can make crafts so that the guys remember better how such beautiful butterflies are made from a caterpillar.

crawling on the grass,

Hanging in a cocoon

But the time will come

And fly into the sky.

(caterpillar and butterfly)

Butterfly's daughter

All in small bright dots,

crawling slowly

Leaves gnaw.

(Caterpillar)

Where the leaf beetle crawled,

The trace disappeared from the sheet.

(Caterpillar )

Julia made this application-life cycle of a butterfly.

What are butterflies.

Butterflies are very different. To tell children about the variety of butterflies, you can look at books, encyclopedias, and if possible, go to a museum where there are butterflies.

The most common butterfly is the urticaria. Beautiful, colorful, orange with black dots. It is called urticaria because its caterpillar can eat nettles.

Lemongrass is bright. yellow butterfly. It can often be confused with a leaf.

The cabbage white is a very common butterfly, white with black dots. Her caterpillars eat cabbage leaves. Look at the pictures of various butterflies. Let the children remember them, and then on a walk they will try to guess what kind of butterfly flies. Yulia already recognizes some butterflies in nature.

More can be seen butterfly cartoon. Children love such bright cartoons.

Butterfly protection.

Don't forget to tell your kids to take care of butterflies. You can't catch them, kill them. many butterflies are already listed in the Red Book. Of course, there are caterpillars and butterflies that are harmful agriculture. For example, cabbage caterpillars reduce yields of cabbage and apples. But a huge number of butterflies are either neutral or useful and must be protected. We, for example, use fabrics natural silk, from cocoons that caterpillars weave silkworm. Butterflies are important as pollinators. To control weeds, caterpillars are used, which feed on one type of weed. Butterflies must also be protected because they are very beautiful and adorn fields, meadows and forests.

Here is another Julia butterfly app.

Results:

1. Introduced children to appearance butterflies

2. Considered its life cycle

3. Riddles about caterpillars

4. Made an application.

5. Considered a variety of butterflies and watched a cartoon.

6. We talked about protecting butterflies.

This is how you can introduce our children to beautiful butterfly insects. You can also draw butterflies, decorate pictures. Invent games.

Write your comments. Now it's summer. Many rest, there is little time to visit. But anyway, I look forward to your feedback.

What else can you see:

Butterflies are airy, weightless creatures familiar to many of us. Beautiful or not, they are all living proof of the amazingness of nature. Born as caterpillars, they acquire wings and fly away, only to leave their offspring again in the form of caterpillars. Butterflies are amazing, and the variety of their species can amaze anyone.

1. The smallest butterfly, acetosia, has a wingspan of only about 2 millimeters. At the largest, tizania agrippina - up to 28 centimeters.
2. Butterflies, like elephants, feed on their trunks. More precisely, the proboscis (see).
3. In total, there are about 165 thousand species of butterflies and moths in the world. Yes, yes, thousands! Moreover, most of them prefer to lead a nocturnal lifestyle.
4. Moth hawks, nocturnal moths, know how to howl in a wolf manner. This howling buzz imitates that of the queen bee, which allows the hawk hawk to freely enter the bee hive and feast on honey, which makes up a fair share of its diet.
5. Butterflies are found on all continents except Antarctica (see).
6. Butterfly eyes are made up of more than a thousand faceted elements each.
7. The receptors responsible for taste are located on the paws of butterflies.
8. Some types of butterflies during their life, very short, lay more than a thousand eggs, from which caterpillars then hatch.
9. Butterflies willingly feed on many other species, such as birds and chameleons (see).
10. The northernmost of the butterflies live less than a thousand kilometers from North Pole, on Canada's Queen Elizabeth Island.
11. In China, India and some countries of South America, the population does not hesitate to eat butterflies.
12. Some species of butterflies can reach speeds of over 60 km / h during the flight, covering a distance equal to twenty to thirty thousand lengths of their own body in a minute of flight.
13. Most butterflies are afraid of water, but, for example, the lilac moth can easily emerge if it accidentally falls into the water, shake itself off and fly further.
14. Monarch butterflies understand medicinal plants and know how to use them for medical purposes if their offspring need help.
15. Butterflies do not have such an organ as the heart.
16. Butterflies distinguish only three colors - red, yellow and green.
17. There are also vampire butterflies that feed in the same way as mosquitoes do - calyptra eustrigata. However, only males feed on blood, while females prefer plant foods.
18. The skeleton of a butterfly, more precisely, the exoskeleton, is not inside its body, but outside. All internal organs are inside it.
19. Butterfly cabbage is very prolific. If all the offspring of at least one cabbage survived, so many of its descendants would be born in a season that they would weigh three times more than all the people on Earth combined.
20. In China, butterflies are considered a symbol of love and lovers.

Butterflies are well-known insects that attract especially great attention, since many species are large, bright, beautiful coloring and are often found in forests, gardens, meadows and clearings. There are 8,000 species of butterflies in the CIS.

The scientific name of the order - Lepidoptera - is based on the most important feature of these insects: the large wings of butterflies are covered with tiny scales. These scales are brightly colored, arranged on the wings in a strict order and form a wing pattern. From this picture it is easy to determine the type of butterfly. Under the scales, the wings of all butterflies are the same: they are a transparent or whitish thin plate, reinforced with a kind of skeleton, consisting of thicker, darker and more elastic veins. The veins form a pattern of cells. Different groups of butterflies differ well in the length and direction of the veins and in the shape of the cells. These signs are used in more complete determinants.

Another important feature of butterflies is the development of the so-called proboscis in many species. This is a thin long tube that arose from the mouth organs, with the help of which butterflies feed on the nectar of flowers, and some - on the flowing tree sap. The proboscis of most species is spirally twisted. Those butterflies that do not feed do not have a proboscis.

Butterfly antennae are very diverse. large group butterflies has thin long antennae with a club-shaped extension at the very end. These butterflies are diurnal and are called mace or diurnal butterflies.

Another group of butterflies leads a twilight and nocturnal lifestyle. They are called night butterflies. The structure of the antennae of moths is very diverse, most species have filiform or feathery antennae. In males, the antennae often have a more complex structure than in females.

Diurnal butterflies fly slowly, flutter, while nocturnal species often have a very fast flight.

Butterflies have large bulging eyes on their heads. The thoracic region of these insects is very well developed - it contains strong flying muscles. The abdomen is elongated, in females it is often very thick, as it contains a large number of eggs. Butterflies have 3 pairs of well-developed legs, however, in some species, the front legs are shortened.

Butterflies in nature are found throughout the warm season. Overwintered specimens begin to fly in early spring. From eggs laid by females in late autumn, young caterpillars appear in spring.

Butterfly larvae are called caterpillars. The fleshy body of caterpillars is naked or covered with hair. The head is large, with gnawing mouthparts. Caterpillars are remarkable in that, in addition to short chest legs, they also have tenacious ventral legs. These legs are unusual, they are muscular outgrowths of the body, equipped with a tenacious, hooked sole. The ventral legs of caterpillars are called false legs to emphasize their difference from the true, pectoral legs. However, it is the ventral legs that are adapted for climbing plants, on which the caterpillars of most species of butterflies develop.

Caterpillars are herbivorous, only a few prey or eat grain, wax, wool or woolen products (for example, some moths). Having reached maturity, caterpillars for pupation weave a cocoon or pupate without a cocoon - under the bark, in various shelters, in the upper layers of the soil or openly on plants, fences, walls of buildings, etc. Butterflies usually emerge from pupae in 2-3 weeks.

The importance of butterflies in nature, agriculture and forestry is very high. Some species of butterflies are able to reproduce in huge quantities. During these periods, they destroy the foliage and needles of trees, damaging tens and hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest, damage horticulture, especially fruit trees, destroy the results of the work of vegetable growers, attacking cabbage and root crops, etc. There are among butterflies and beneficial species. They are bred, for example, in order to obtain silk from cocoons.

Someone, looking at butterflies, admires their weightless beauty, and someone claims that they are furry caterpillars with wings. The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle - after all, butterflies do develop from caterpillars. There are a great many species of these creatures in the world, which are studied and bred by thousands of enthusiasts.

Butterfly Facts

• Butterfly wingspan and shape different types varies from 2 mm to 28 cm.
• Butterflies (or, as scientists call them, Lepidoptera) are one of the richest insect orders in terms of the number of species. To date, more than 158,000 butterflies are known to exist on the planet. It is assumed that even up to 100 thousand species of these insects have not yet been discovered by scientists.
• Butterflies inhabit all continents and islands of the Earth, except for Antarctica (facts about Antarctica).
• Butterflies appeared on the planet more than 200 million years ago - scientists discovered their remains dating back to the Jurassic period.
• The Russian word "butterfly" comes from the word "babka". The comparison of these wonderful insects with old women is due to the fact that earlier butterflies were considered the souls of the dead. In some villages they are still called "grandmothers" or "grandmothers".
• Agrippina scoop - a butterfly with the largest wingspan of all known species these insects. It is up to 28 cm, and according to some sources - even up to 31 cm.
• Butterfly-record holder total area wings - female Saturnia living in Australia and New Guinea. The surface of its wings can reach 263 cm (Facts about Australia).
• Some of the smallest butterflies on the planet are baby moths, whose wingspan is about 4 mm.
• The largest diurnal butterfly living on Russian territory is the Maak sailboat (wingspan up to 13.5 cm), and the night one is the large nocturnal peacock eye (up to 15 cm).
• Some butterflies, such as peacock-eyes or clothes moths, do not eat at all - during adulthood they spend nutrients accumulated at the caterpillar stage.
• Bag butterflies, or psyches, live in the form of an adult insect for only a few minutes, during which they have time to mate and lay eggs.

• The compound eyes of butterflies can have up to 27,000 segments.
• The vision of butterflies allows them to distinguish colors, however, the ability to see certain shades depends on the species. It is known that the most attractive colors for butterflies are blue-violet and yellow-red (vision facts).
• Butterflies see moving objects much better than stationary ones.
• Most butterflies sense taste using receptors located on their legs, just like spiders (spider facts).
• Some butterflies have special membranes on their abdomens that allow them to hear ultrasound from 10 to 100 kHz.
• Almost all butterflies have a pattern on the right and left wings, but there are also species with different patterns on each side of the body - for example, the Madagascar urania (facts about Madagascar).
• The color and pattern of butterfly wings depend on the conditions in which the caterpillar lived and at what temperature the chrysalis developed into which it turned.
• The body temperature of butterflies, optimal for flight, is 30-35 degrees Celsius.
• Most butterflies are able to reach speeds of 7 to 17 km/h in flight.
• Butterflies from the genus Scoop, living in India and Malaysia, feed on the tears and blood of large animals (facts about India).
• In butterflies, during the development of which genetic mutation, one half of the body can be male and the other half female. Sometimes only certain parts of the body of a butterfly have signs of a different sex - for example, a piece of a male's wing has a color characteristic of females.
• Butterfly mating lasts from 20 minutes to several hours. All this time, the female and male are completely motionless.