Butterflies are one of the most weightless and mesmerizing representatives of the fauna. It would seem that they have little time to please people with their natural grace and charm. But if you approach this issue from a scientific point of view, then such an assumption cannot be called completely reliable.
Beautiful creatures
Many different factors affect the life span of butterflies. These are climatic conditions, and belonging to a particular species, and the presence of a unique color, which can become a subject of desire for a collector. The very existence of these lepidoptera can be divided into several successive stages: an egg, a larva or caterpillar, a pupa and an adult, called an imago.
In terms of averages, the duration of the egg stage ranges between 8-15 days. The larvae mature for several days, but sometimes the process lasts for years, usually not exceeding a seven-year period. Pupa formation can also take a small number of days, and it can even take up to three years. Adult insects, familiar to human visual perception, as a rule, live only two to three weeks, with rare exceptions.
How, then, do some species of butterflies manage to maintain their existence at its various stages for such long periods of time? This is due to the fact that insects, mainly living in northern latitudes, have the ability to fall into suspended animation. During it, all metabolic processes slow down, and the body does not need to waste excessive energy to maintain them. In this state, butterflies are quite resistant even to pesticides that people use to process crops.
The winged beauties also have another amazing feature. If they haven't accumulated enough nutrients to move on to the next stage of formation, this does not kill them. On the contrary, the duration of the unfinished phase increases by the required period, reaching several years, especially in the caterpillar and pupa stages.
Interesting facts
The monarch Danaida butterflies are unique members of their species. They live in the adult stage from nine months to a year, setting an unspoken record in the world of these lepidoptera.
The life cycle of the Brixton butterfly lasts for ten months. True, unlike the aforementioned relatives, this mainly applies to her stay in the form of a caterpillar and pupa.
The shortest life is given to bluebirds - only a few days. For about twenty days, the cabbage whitelet, a typical Russian representative, has the opportunity to flutter through the natural spaces. By the way, it earned its name due to the fact that cabbage is one of the components of the food for the caterpillar of this insect.
