Description
Book SynopsisButterflies and moths hold an enduring fascination for their unusual life cycle, as they change from one creature into another. Butterflies is an outstanding collection of photographs showcasing nature’s most beautiful and often elusive butterflies and moths – members of the Lepidoptera order – in the variety of their natural habitats. With 17,500 species of butterfly and 160,000 species of moth in the world today, they can be found on every continent apart from Antarctica, and in every nation.
Arranged in chapters covering some of the most beautiful and interesting types of butterfly and moth, their habitats, their transition from egg to caterpillar and from chrysalid to adult, as well as their behaviour, the book reveals little-known facts about their life cycle, anatomy, self-defence mechanisms, feeding and migration.
For example, did you know that while caterpillars chew their solid food, adult butterflies can only consume liquid, and some moths do not even have mouths? Or that many species can taste with their feet?
With full captions explaining how the species breeds, feeds, and changes from caterpillar to the animal kingdom’s most stunning member, Butterflies is a brilliant examination in more than 200 outstanding colour photographs of these fascinating insects.
Table of ContentsContents to include:
Introduction
Chapter One: Butterfly Species and Anatomy
Chapter Two: Moth Species and Anatomy
Chapter Three: Habitats
Butterflies and moths live in a wide variety of habitats: tropical forest, grasslands, sand dunes, coastlines, mangroves and mountains, to name a few. Many of these are occupied because of the particular foods they offer the insects. Butterflies and moths adapt to survive in these habitats, employing various ingenious self-defence mechanisms. They also contribute to the ecosystem they are part of through pollination.
Chapter Four: Life Cycle
Butterflies and moths have four distinct stages of their life – eggs, caterpillar/larva, pupa and adult – and the transition between each is a sight to behold.
Chapter Five: Behaviour
Members of the Lepidoptera order display numerous fascinating behaviours. This chapter examines their feeding, migration, navigation, communication, breeding and territoriality.
Butterfly species and sub-species discussed to include:
Anna’s Eighty-Eight
Apollo
Arctic fritillary
Banded orange tiger
Blue morpho
Blue tiger
Ceylon rose
Chimaera birdwing
Common blue
Common buckeye
Cracker
Dead leaf
Eastern comma
Elizabethan
Emerald swallowtail
Forest giant owl
Glasswing
Golden Kaiser-i-hind
Helioconius hacale zuleikas
Island marble
Malachite
Map
Monarch
Painted lady
Peacock
Peacock pansy
Piedmont ringlet
Purple emperor
Question mark
Rajah Brooke’s birdwing
Red admiral
Richmond birdwing
Schaus’ swallowtail
Silver-washed fritillary
Silver-studded blue
Spanish festoon
Sylphina angel
Ulysses
Viceroy
Zebra swallowtail
Moth species and sub-species discussed to include:
Atlas
Cecropia
Cinnabar
Comet
Dysphania militaris
Elephant hawk-moth
Emperor
Gallium sphinx
Garden tiger
Giant leopard
Hummingbird hawk-moth
Io
Japanese silk moth
Lime-hawk-moth
Luna
Madagascan moon
Noctuidae
Oleander hawk-moth
Pellucid hawk-moth
Rosy maple
Texas wasp-moth
Uropyia meticulodina
White-lined sphinx
