Butterflies- Learn something new today!

Today is National Learn About Butterflies Day!  I love this.  I had no idea and I work in a museum that has a butterfly pavilion ;)  I'll have to check to make sure we are doing something fun today.

I decided to celebrate by making this card:

I also decided to share some facts about butterflies, so we can all learn something!  I found these facts on this site (The Butterfly Site).

·  Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches.

·  Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.

·  Some people say that when the black bands on the Woolybear caterpillar are wide, a cold winter is coming.

·  The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!

·  Monarch butterflies journey from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and return to the north again in the spring.

·  Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

·  Representations of butterflies are seen in Egyptian frescoes at Thebes, which are 3,500 years old.

·  Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera have been found.

·  There are about 24,000 species of butterflies. The moths are even more numerous: about 140,000 species of them were counted all over the world.

·  The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepterix rhamni) has the longest lifetime of the adult butterflies: 9-10 months.

·  Some Case Moth caterpillars (Psychidae) build a case around themselves that they always carry with them. It is made of silk and pieces of plants or soil.

·  The caterpillars of some Snout Moths (Pyralididae) live in or on water-plants.

·  The females of some moth species lack wings, all they can do to move is crawl.

·  The Morgan's Sphinx Moth from Madagascar has a proboscis (tube mouth) that is 12 to 14 inches long to get the nectar from the bottom of a 12 inch deep orchid discovered by Charles Darwin.

·  Some moths never eat anything as adults because they don't have mouths. They must live on the energy they stored as caterpillars.

·  Many butterflies can taste with their feet to find out whether the leaf they sit on is good to lay eggs on to be their caterpillars' food or not. 

Have a wonderful day and thanks for looking!

 

Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches.

Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.

Some people say that when the black bands on the Woolybear caterpillar are wide, a cold winter is coming.

The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!

Monarch butterflies journey from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and return to the north again in the spring.

Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

Representations of butterflies are seen in Egyptian frescoes at Thebes, which are 3,500 years old.

Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera have been found.

There are about 24,000 species of butterflies. The moths are even more numerous: about 140,000 species of them were counted all over the world.

The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepterix rhamni) has the longest lifetime of the adult butterflies: 9-10 months.

Some Case Moth caterpillars (Psychidae) build a case around themselves that they always carry with them. It is made of silk and pieces of plants or soil.

The caterpillars of some Snout Moths (Pyralididae) live in or on water-plants.

The females of some moth species lack wings, all they can do to move is crawl.

The Morgan's Sphinx Moth from Madagascar has a proboscis (tube mouth) that is 12 to 14 inches long to get the nectar from the bottom of a 12 inch deep orchid discovered by Charles Darwin.

Some moths never eat anything as adults because they don't have mouths. They must live on the energy they stored as caterpillars.

Many butterflies can taste with their feet to find out whether the leaf they sit on is good to lay eggs on to be their caterpillars' food or not.

- See more at: http://www.thebutterflysite.com/facts.shtml#sthash.1CjIQRgJ.dpuf