Moths and Cloths

Greenbottle flies like to try to eat defenseless sheep before their wool is sheared off.  Most moths, however, go after wool after it’s made into your favorite sweater.

Maybe these moths are just dizzy from all that circling.  What other reason could they have for eating someone else’s hair?  They’ve never told us, but keep your woolen sweaters, scarves and mittens far, far away from moths!

We get our wool from sheep.  First, the sheep gets a haircut and the sheared wool is cleaned.  Any bugs that live in the warm, dense wool must bid their home goodbye!  The, the wool is dyed and carded or brushed flat in a sliver.  The slivers are rolled into a cord, or yarn, and eventually weaved into a cloth or knitted into a sweater.  Apparently, moths think that all this work is done just so they can have a nice pretty sweater for dinner.  To protect your clothes from moths, place some cedar chips or a few mothballs in your closet. Moths, and most humans can’t stand the smell!

Going to the Moon!

Moths are known by the “circling” patterns they make as they fly, but the only time they do so is when we can see them.  Most of the time they fly in a straight line, guided by the light of the moon. 

However, when they see our lights, they get confused by these impostor moons, and try to switch course, which causes them to fly in circles.  You can try to confuse moths even further by flashing two flashlights on and off, onte at a time.  If you succeed in tricking the poor moth, you’ll see it flying back and forth from one flashlight to the other.

Why Wool is Warm

Did You Know:  Why do we make our warmest clothes out of wool?  Because it works like an insulator:  it keeps your body heat inside your cothes and does not allow it to escape.  But did you also know that wool keeps the heat out too?  The principle is the same; it does not allow heat to cross through, whether inside or out.

A Host Plant For Butterflies

Host plants serve as incubating stations for butterflies and moths, places where the females can lay eggs. 

When butterflies, these beautifully winged wonders, move on to the next stage of metamorphosis and become larvae or caterpillars, they proceed to eat their way through their former nursery to fuel their prodicious growth, using opposable toothed mandibles that can only be seen with a magnifying glass.

As the caterpillar grows, it molts its outer layer of skin from four to six times, much like a snake.  Once the caterpillar has eaten its fill, it casts off its final skin and enters the third stage, the pupl phase, where it generally disappers into a case.  That case is known as a chrysalis in the case of butterflies and a cocoon if the pupa is a moth.

A magnificent winged adult emerges anywhere from one week to several months later, depending on the species.  Once fully emerged, the adult will hang upside-down by its legs for several hours until its soft wrinkled wings fully unfold and harden for flight.

Caterpillars Diet

While adudlt butterflies and moths generally find a variety of nectar-producing plants appealing, caterpillars typically have very specialized diets.  For instance fodder for the sleepy orange caterpillar consists mostly of senna.  Monarch caterpillars feed solely on milkweed, also known as butterfly weed, while cinnabar moth caterpillars eat ragwort.

Both these plants not only supply monarch and cinnabar caterpillars with sustenance, but they also increase their survival odds because they are poisonous to many of their predators.

Caterpillars are such picky eaters that butterflies are very particular about  where they lay their eggs.  And how do female butterflies know which plants to use as hosts for their young?  Special taste receptorslocatedin the feeet of butterflies both sense sweet liquids and allow many species to “feet taste” the leaves, ascertaining the plant’s suitability as a host. 

Moths have similar taste receptors in their antennae.  In addition, both butterflies and moths identify plants by their shapes, colors, and odors  Still, favored host plants for any given species may differ from place to place because taste preferences can vary from one region to the next.

19 Plants That Attract Butterflies

“Butterflies need food and places to lay their eggs.  Help them help in turn feed our plants with pollenation!  Plant these plants to give our fluttery winged friends a helping “wing” to fly!”

The monarch butterfly is sometimes called the “milkweed butterfly” because its larvae eat the plant.  In fact, milkweed is the only thing the larvae can eat!  If you’d like to attract monarchs to your garden, you can try planting milkweed (if you live in the right area).

Adult female Monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves.  These eggs hatch, depending on temperature, in three to twelve days.  After awhile, the caterpillars attach themselves head down to a convenient twig, they shed their outer skin and begin the transformation into a pupa (or chrysalis), a process which is completed in a matter of hours.

The pupa resembles a waxy, jade vase and becomes increasingly transparent as the process progresses.  The caterpillar completes the miraculous transformation into a beautiful adult butterfly in about two weeks.

The butterfly finally emerges from the now transparent chrysalis.

It inflates its wings with a pool of blood it has stored in its abdomen.  When this is done, the monarch expels any excess fluid and rests.

The butterfly waits until its wings stiffen and dry before it flies away to start the cycle of life all over again.

Eastern populations winter in Florida, along the coast of Texas, and in Mexico, and return to the north in spring.  Monarch butterflies follow the same migration patterns every year.  During migration, huge numbers of butterflies can be seen gathered together.

Nope, those orange things to the left are not autumn leaves… they’re hundreds of Monarch butterflies!

Most predators have learned that the monarch butterfly makes a poisonous snack.  The toxins from the Monarch’s milkweed diet have given the butterfly this defense.  In either the caterpillar or butterfly stage the Monarch needs no camouflage because it takes in toxins from the milkweed and is poisonous to predators.  Many animals advertise their poisonous nature with bright colors… just like the monarch!

19 Plants That Butterflies Love

1. Aster
2. Borage
3. Butterfly weed
4. Chives
5. Coreopsis
6. Day Lily
7. False Indigo
8. Heliotrope
9. Hollyhock
10. Lantana
11. Marigold
12. Nasturtium
13. Parsley
14. Pearly Everlasting
15. Purple Cornflower
16. Sedum
17. Sweet Alyssum
18. White Clover
19. Wild Bergamot
20. Milkweed

Help the Butterflies!  Enjoy them in your garden!

-Wings To Fly

Yellow Flutters In The Morning

For the past two weeks, I’ve been pleased to watch a little yellow butterfly come and suck from the morning glories, marigolds and petunias in my front yard flower beds.  This little yellow butterfly flutter’s it’s delicate wings, and lands lightly on each bloom, spends 1 second, and moves to the next bloom, until the thirst is quenced and she’s off, fluttering in her wavy back and forth style, over the roof and away.  She comes by routinely, at 8:30 in the morning, stays around for about 5 minutes, and off she flies.  Sometimes I can catch her again in the late afternoon, for another brief sip of nectar.

I feel at peace, watching this little soft-winged creature work her way through the flowers.  I’m glad we’ve planted them, and I thank her everyday, for giving me a moment of sunshine.

-Marisue, the lover of wyngs.