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butterflies are often presented as a natural reminder of how fleeting and fragile beauty can be. Their slender and delicate bodies are accompanied by often beautiful wing patterns and the transition of a hungry caterpillar in a beautiful butterfly is like the story of the ugly duckling made flesh. The average adult butterfly only lives for a few weeks, and it just makes this perception all the more poignant. But our general perception of this unique insects is complicated by the facts.
There are over 17,000 species spread across every continent except Antarctica, and many species have had to adopt unusual and bizarre behaviors to adapt to the harsh realities of their unique ecosystems. Here are eight of the most unique butterflies. Whether colorful, rare, threatened, or just bizarre, each of these types of butterflies reveals some fascinating facts about natural selection.
#8: Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing – The World’s Largest Butterfly
This large butterfly species native to Papua New Guinea was named after Danish royalties, so it makes sense that the females are the largest members of the species. Their wingspan can reach 11 inches from tip to tip, and males are generally slightly smaller than females. Males of the species also have a colorful blue and green body that is in stark contrast to the gray and cream of female members of the species. While this is a common tactic to divert predators away from females, few animals pose a direct threat to Queen Alexandra’s Birdwings.
Unfortunately, they face a greater threat in the form of deforestation from the palm oil industry and a fervent interest from black market dealers. utilities critically endangeredTheir population is believed to have been reduced to four small communities spread over just 40 square miles.
#7: Western Pygmy Blue Butterfly – The World’s Smallest Butterfly
While the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing towers over most of its brethren with its nearly foot-long wingspan, it is a particularly sharp counterpoint to the the world’s smallest butterfly. The Western Pygmy Blue butterfly is a unique butterfly that often measures less than half an inch. Despite their name, these are not colorful birds and instead they have mostly brown coats making these most unique butterflies even harder to spot. But by flying under the radar, they have arguably become one of the most prolific butterfly species in America.
The largest populations are in Mexico and Central America, where more consistently warm climates provide them with plenty of flowers to feed on. But the United States is also home to a healthy population of Western Pygmy Blues stretching as far north Oregon. In fact, they adapt well when introduced to new climates and have expanded their range to Hawaii and Saudi Arabia.
#6: Brimstone Butterfly – the world’s longest living butterfly
The mayfly is the animal species with the shortest lifespan, and they will die within a day of their birth. At the other end of the spectrum is the animal with the longest lifespan – the greenland shark and life expectancy of up to 300 years. The Brimstone Butterfly has the longest life expectancy of all butterflies, but its higher range of 13 months means it is much closer to the mayfly than the Greenland shark. This unique butterfly can be recognized by their distinctly green and leaf-shaped wings, and the six subspecies are found everywhere Europe, Asia, and Africa. The short lifespan of most butterflies is affected by a lack of suitable flowers to feed on in colder seasons, but sulfur butterflies overcome this by occupying tropical climates where possible and otherwise hibernation through the winter.
#5: Spring Azure — The Butterfly with the Shortest Life Expectancy
With a wingspan of one inch, the Spring Azure doesn’t quite beat the Western Pygmy Blue for the position of the smallest species on our list of the most unique butterflies, but it is both one of the earliest of the North American butterflies to wake up in the spring and be one of the first to disappear. Unfortunately, the latter feature comes down to the fact that adults only a few days after they get out of the doll. While this may seem like it would affect their long-term success as a species, azure butterflies manage to get through the colder period of the year by entering the pupa when the weather starts to get colder and not emerging as fully formed. butterflies until the time of the first thaw. These insects are far from rare, they range from Canada in the north to Colombia in the south.
#4: Painted Lady — the furthest migration of all species
While the spring azure spring survives the cold bite of winter by essentially going into stasis, other butterfly species are migrating to warmer climates. But the Painted Lady butterfly goes against convention by both boasting of the longest migration route and refusing to stick to seasonal flight paths. While scientists aren’t quite sure what dictates their migration patterns, precipitation and storm patterns are believed to play a role. The path takes them from Canada to Mexico. It is a journey that covers approximately 8000 miles, and the typical journey will see six generations of butterflies come and go. Painted Lady butterflies can fly so far because they are generalists known to feed on about 300 different types of flowers. They also have the unusual ability – which they share with the monarch butterfly — to store toxic chemicals from the flowers they eat in their blood, making them indigestible for many predators.
#3: Zebra Longwing – Butterflies That Can Feed On Pollen
Mostly found in Mexico and Central America, but also scattered communities as far north as Texas and Florida, the Zebra Longwings uniquely striped wings are secondary to their unique feeding habits. While most species butterflies can only drink nectar through their long straw-like trunk, zebra longwings can break off and absorb pollen. That’s important because it allows them to get more nutrition from each plant, but pollen is also important because of its high protein content. Ironically, butterflies spend all their time as caterpillars collecting proteins for their metamorphosis, only to adopt a diet almost absent in proteins once they have completed their metamorphosis to adulthood. This allows them to live for up to six months and lay multiple eggs in a single life cycle.
#2: Harvester Butterfly – The Butterfly That Is Also a Carnivore
The Harvester butterfly is not endangered but is rare as it is the only butterfly in North America known to be completely carnivorous during the caterpillar stage of its life cycle. More specifically, harvest caterpillars are specialized carnivores that feed almost exclusively on woolly aphids. Despite aphids being significantly larger than most young caterpillars and having a protective symbiotic relationship with native species ants, these creatures have evolved a bizarre adaptation that allows them to chemically mask themselves from detection by these dangerous ants and use their silk webbing to immobilize aphids that they then feed on.
Adult harvest butterflies are not carnivores, but they continue to eat an unusual diet based on the presence of aphids. Their short proboscis makes eating flower pollen difficult, instead feeding on a combination of aphids, honeydew, dung and mud.
#1: Alcon Blue — the butterfly that makes ants raise her young
If the relationship between ants and the Harvester butterfly can be identified as directly antagonistic, then the relationship between Alcon Blue and ants is much more complex. Using a similar strategy to the cuckoo bird, they go through the first three stages of molting on the flower they are laid on falls to the ground. Once they come into contact with the native red myrmica ant, they instinctively secrete a sweet substance for the ant to eat and also release chemicals that make ants mistake them for their own young.
For a period of up to two years, these pupae are fed by unsuspecting ants that neglect their own young because of the parasitic invader. During this process, they can grow up to 100 times their original size. And while ants recognize the intruder as soon as it hatches, the adult Alcon Blue’s scaly wings protect it from attack. Despite this ingenious approach to maturation, the Alcon Blue remains an endangered species and one of the most unique butterflies.
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