Tuesday 23 July 2013

The Glasswing Butterfly - Greta Oto

After a long break of almost two months, I return with 10 (give or take a couple) facts every week about an animal or plant of your choice. I'm going to start with the pseudonyms of this blog's admins. First up, the Glasswing Butterfly!

  1. Its name in Spanish is espejitos, meaning “little mirrors”. 
  2. It can carry up to 40 times its own weight.
  3. The glasswing butterfly lays its eggs on the poisonous nightshade plant, which makes both it and its caterpillars toxic to predators.
  4. The alkaloid poisons in a glasswing butterfly are turned into pheromones and used in courtship by male butterflies.
  5. Its translucent wings are made by lack of scales rather than translucent scales.
  6. As well as feeding on nectar, glasswing butterflies feed on insect-eating birds’ droppings to get amino acids.
  7. Its wings allow it to hide from predators, rather than scaring them off like other butterflies do.
  8. There are many types of glasswing butterfly, including ones with translucent pink wings.
  9. Even though butterflies do not typically migrate, glasswing butterflies do.
Do you want to see facts about your favourite animal or plant in a future post? Leave a message in the comments!


1 comment:

  1. can you gie some more mating facts p.s. you site is helpful

    ReplyDelete

Hello, commenter.
Nice to know you're showing interest in what we're doing. The Glasswing Butterfly and the Blobfish urge you to be nice while commenting and will hunt you down and find you if you aren't. You don't want to see a near-invisible butterfly and a gloppy slimy blob outside your front door. Trust me.