Nature has an amazing imagination, especially when it comes to the colors of the animal and plant worlds. Confirmation is the amazing coloring of butterflies called the peacock eye. It very accurately reflects the essence of the image on the wings of an insect. The variety of shades and the clarity of the pattern suggest that this is a creation of human hands.
Description
Perhaps there is no person who has not seen a peacock butterfly at least once in his life. Description:
- Appearance. These are rather large insects, with a wingspan of up to 55 mm in males and up to 62 mm in females. The body is black, covered with a reddish down. The wings have a pattern in the form of circles (there are only four of them: one each on the upper and lower wings). In shape and color, they resemble the color of a peacock's tail feather. Main colors: red, black, blue, cyan, purple, brown, yellow.
- Habitats. Peacock butterflies are distributed throughout the world. Not found in the Far North, Crete, desert zones, North Africa. They prefer wastelands, steppes, meadows, open forest edges, parks, gardens. They are found in the mountains at an altitude of up to 2500 meters above sea level. Active from early spring to mid-autumn. For hibernation choose dry cool places, attics, tree hollows, haystacks. With strong thaws, they can also occur in winter.
- Food. In the caterpillar stage, the main plant is nettle, they can feed on willow, hops, raspberries, and sometimes hemp. Adults feed on plant nectar. This is their distinguishing feature - they do not harm the flora.
Reproduction
The Peacock eye (photo in the text) goes through four stages of reproduction:
- Eggs. The insect lays up to 300 eggs at a time on the lower part of the nettle leaf, the period is April-May. Masonry in temperate regions is single, in the southern regions it can be two or three times.
- Caterpillar. They are painted black with small white spots, covered with hard branched spikes. Individuals live and feed together for about 4 months, until the moment of pupation. They eat only nettles, in its absence they can switch to hops. The caterpillars completely eat the plant and only after that they begin to look for the next one, they do it with the help of the organs of touch. The first generation of caterpillars begins life in May-June, the second - in July-August.
- Chrysalis. The stage lasts about two weeks. All this time the insect is in a cocoon. It has a somewhat angular shape, is attached to plants, walls, fences upside down. Color dependsfrom the environment and can vary from green to gray or brown.
- Butterfly. Two weeks later, an amazingly beautiful peacock butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. Moreover, the brightness of its color directly depends on the air temperature. She continues her active life until the onset of cold weather, with their arrival falls into hibernation.
Home maintenance
Peacock butterflies can be kept as pets. Food for them is nectar, ripe fruits, plant juice. You can prepare a mixture of honey (sugar), water and fruit. For reproduction, a pair is needed - a female and a male. Mating can last from 30 minutes to 8 hours. After fertilization, the female lays her eggs on pre-prepared fresh nettle leaves. They are neatly stacked in a box, providing high humidity, warmth and good air circulation.
With the advent of caterpillars, the chores of feeding them begin. Daily diet - fresh nettle leaves, hops, raspberries. With the advent of pupae, insects are moved to a more spacious dwelling. It is better to hang the cocoons, and put a damp towel on the bottom of the dwelling, providing the necessary microclimate.
Butterflies fall asleep at a temperature of +15 °C. They are neatly folded into a box and taken out to the loggia or glazed balcony, you can put them in the refrigerator. The optimum temperature is 0 ° C and +5 ° C, in heat the insect can grow old too quickly, not wake up at all. Life expectancy - up to 12 months.
