Butterfly Habitats
Though different kinds of butterflies have similar life cycle, you won't find every kind of butterfly everywhere. If you went to the different kinds of places listed below, you could see butterflies in all of them, but the kinds of butterflies would be different from one habitat to the next. Why is that?
- Most butterflies (especially as caterpillars) feed only on a limited variety of plants; some eat only a single species.
- Most plants occur in particular habitats, as determined by many factors, including: temperature, amount of sunlight, amount of rainfall (and snowfall!), soil type, wind, and geological history of the land. Some of these factors can affect the butterflies directly, too.
Photos
Introduction
A butterfly is any of several groups of mainly day-flying insects of the order Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths.
Like other holometabolous insects, butterflies' life cycle consists of four parts, egg, larva, pupa and adult.
Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight.
Butterflies comprise the true butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea), the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea).
All the many other families within the Lepidoptera are referred to as moths.