Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Butterfly Life Cycle

Butterfly Life Cycle - Facinating creatures these........


Butterfly Life Cycle

The life cycle of a butterfly has four stages, From Egg - Larva or Caterpillar - Pupa or Chrysalis - Adult Butterfly and is said to have a complete life cycle or metamorphosis.

Characteristically, butterflies undergo major developmental changes during their growth. For example, the butterfly lays eggs which hatch into creeping forms with chewing mouth parts. These are called caterpillars or larvae. Incidentally, the word caterpillar is derived from two latin words, catta pilosa, meaning ‘hairy car’ which is quite descriptive of some kinds. But butterfly larvae are not hairy. During this stage, the butterfly feeds and grows. As a matter of fact, it is only during the larval stage, that actual growth occurs, and a caterpillar’s only aim in life is to feed and store up food. As it increases in size, however, the number of cells in the body does not increase; they merely become larger. When full grown, the caterpillar sheds its skin and transforms into a pupa. This is called chrysalis in the case of butterfly. When this transformation occurs, the larval cells begin to die and clusters of adult cells, which have so far been quiescent, are stimulated into growth by hormones or chemical regulators secreted by glands in the head and thorax.

During the pupal stage, the larval tissues are torn down and slowly rebuilt into organs more fitted for aerial life. When the chrysalis is mature, the wings and legs of the future butterfly can be seen through its transparent skin. The developed butterfly crawls out by splitting open the chrysalis. At first, its wings are mere fluid filled sacs, but these rapidly expand and harden, and the adult winged butterfly is then ready for flight. It no longer has mouth parts fitted fro chewing leaves; they are now tube like and are used only for siphoning nectar from flowers. There is no growth during the adult stage.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

My Butterly Garden

sinu s kumar
Sinu S Kumar



Being habitual of getting up early in the morning to go for a jog, and being the nature lover that I am, I usually take a few minutes to admire nature in all it’s glory with the majestic towering trees, the lovely and bright flowers, the chirpy birds and pretty butterflies on them.

Butterflies are fascinating creatures, and I do love them. Wildlife photography being my hobby I’ve seen a lot of butterflies in their natural habitat and with much difficulty managed to photograph some.

Well u can’t blame the butterflies for not co-operating; its just that they are not accustomed to people!!!

I have often tried to capture this beauty with my camera and been successful many a times; And they always took me back to the time when as a kid I wanted to capture this beauty in a very different way…in a glass bottle ! All grown up and hopefully matured too…now these delicate and graceful little souls hold more fascination than the ladies of Bollywood in all their myriad colors and hues and blink-n-u-miss appearances…!

And yes, my friends do snub me bout running after them often…so one day I shot back at them saying I don’t run after butterflies all the time…they just come to me naturally!! Well I guess now you know how the idea of a butterfly garden at my house germinated…

So exactly how do u woo butterflies? With lots of flowers….and chocolates? Nah, just flowers for the real butterflies I think…Hmm…I need to do some serious research on this I think…!!

So... lemme first find out more about the butterflies.....

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