Wings of a butterfly - a beautiful mystery of nature

It so happened that insects in our society are mostly negative. Some breed spiders or even cockroaches as pets, and in some regions of the planet they are used for food, but mostly they cause people disgust and other negative emotions. The only exception is butterflies, which though they consider insects, but the attitude in society to them is the opposite: they are admired, admired and even used as living flowers.

Representatives of the Lepidoptera group not only rejoice with their appearance of others, they play an important role in the life of plants - they pollinate them. People are mostly attracted to Wings of the butterfly with its beauty and whimsical patterns, and yet among more than 200 thousand species of these insects, not all are as harmless and beautiful as it is commonly believed.

Among these lovely creatures there are also pests (for example, cabbage moth or fruit moth), and even vampires (some types of night scoops). Contrary to the well-established opinion that the butterfly's wings should be large and beautiful, some species are generally wingless (for example, some volnyanki or fires). The group of Lepidoptera is very diverse, its representatives sometimes do not resemble each other either externally, or the habitat, or food preferences.

Returning to butterflies in the classical sense (those who eat nectar and have large variegated wings), it should be noted that they, like many other insects, look like this only at the last stage of their development. The life of Lepidoptera begins with the eggs that the female lays in a secluded place. This can be a thicket of grass, foliage of trees, the bottom of the pond (and this happens) or a cabinet in the kitchen (some moths breed offspring in food). After a while, larvae appear, which are also called caterpillars. In most cases, they are pests (except bloodsucking species). In the process of growth and development, caterpillars can destroy products tens of times their own volume, and if they are thousands and tens of thousands, they are able to eat whole fields, being a kind of natural disaster. Eventually, the larva becomes a pupa (in some species this stage of development is absent), and only then - a butterfly.

The last stage of development of lepidoptera does not last long. Some species from the moment when the first wings of the butterfly wings occur and survive literally several hours before they die (they are called so-called "one-day" ones). In this case, they can live for several years at the stage of the larva. The structure of a single-day butterfly does not provide for the digestive system - they feed only when they are caterpillars, "growing up", leave offspring in the form of eggs and perish.

In some countries there are entire parks and gardens where these beautiful insects, fed by people, fly freely among flowers and trees, delighting visitors with their bizarre patterns. Looking at the butterfly wings, which, slowly shaking them, sits on a flower, it's hard to believe that she is the closest relative of a cabbage crop that destroys the harvest. But it really is.

These creatures are sometimes so beautiful that people are ready to watch for hours, with bated breath, for how they fly from flower to flower, but sometimes they are disgusting and bloodthirsty. It so happened that some butterfly wings are associated with a beautiful pattern, similar to a flower, while others cause only resentment due to loss of harvest. This, apparently, is the main mystery of the nature of Lepidoptera.