A Few of FR's Finest...Every Day...03-15-06....Butterflies !! The "Pretty" Bugs!

DollyCali | March 15, 2006 | DollyCali

[DollyCali]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world.

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in need; and congratulate those deserving. We strive to keep our threads entertaining, fun, and pleasing to look at, and often have guest writers contribute an essay, or a profile of another FReeper.

On Mondays please visit us to see photos of A FEW OF FR'S VETERANS AND ACTIVE MILITARY

If you have a suggestion, or an idea, or if there's a FReeper you would like to see featured, please drop one of us a note in FR mail.

We're having fun and hope you are!
~ Billie, dutchess, DollyCali GodblessUSA ~

Butterfly Facts

Did you know?

,,,that butterflies taste with their feet?

... that butterflies don't have noses? They smell with their antennae!

. . . that butterfly wings are covered with tiny scales? Different colored scales make up the pretty patterns we see.

... that butterflies are cold-blooded? The dark colors on their wings help them absorb the heat from the sun.

... that some butterflies wear camouflage? The wings of many butterflies have colors and patterns that blend in with their natural surroundings to protect them from predators.

... that butterflies can see ultraviolet light? Some scales on butterfly wings reflect light that is invisible to humans. Butterflies use these ultraviolet patterns to recognize each other.

... that a butterfly's mouth is like a drinking straw? That's because butterflies only eat liquid foods, like nectar from flowers or fruit. The mouth, called a proboscis, stays rolled up until it's time to eat.

... that a butterfly wasn't always a butterfly? Every butterfly starts as a tiny egg that hatches into a caterpillar)larvae). The caterpillar grows and grows until it's time to build a hardened shell around its body, called a chrysalis. While the caterpillar sleeps inside the (pupae) chrysalis, its body changes and grows new parts. When it comes out, it has become a butterfly, quite a different creature than a caterpillar!

Two weeks after hatching, the Monarch butterfly is 3,000 times its original birth weight. ..

The color in a butterfly's wings does not come from pigment. The color is produced prism-like by light reflected by their transparent wing scales..

The world’s smallest butterfly is the Pygmy Blue.  Its wingspan ranges between three eighths to half an inch in length. The largest butterfly in the world is the Giant Birdwing from the Solomon Islands. The female can have a wing span of over 12 inches..

Butterflies have an honed sense of smell and can detect nectar from miles away.  When they sense the blossoming of a plant they thrive on, they will travel for hours to reach it..

Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees

To A Butterfly (second) by William Wordsworth

'VE watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

Written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.

From Cocoon Forth a Butterfly

FROM cocoon forth a butterfly
As lady from her door
Emerged—a summer afternoon—
Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace,
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous enterprise
The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen
Contracting in a field
Where men made hay, then struggling hard
With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself,
To Nowhere seemed to go
In purposeless circumference,
As ’t were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked,
And flower that zealous blew,
This audience of idleness
Disdained they, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
And men that made the hay,
And afternoon, and butterfly,
Extinguished in its sea.

Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924

Another Song of a Fool

THIS great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look,
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.

Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet,
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). The Wild Swans at Coole. 1919.

Butterfly Screen Saver

Kids Butterfly Site

The Butterfly Site

Greta oto is one of a number of similar transparent winged butterflies. It comes from central America, and is found from Mexico to Panama. It is quite common in its zone, but it not easy to find because of its transparent wings, which is a natural camouflage mechanism.

Greta oto is a brush-footed butterfly, and is a member of the clearwing clade; its wings are transparent. Its most common English name is glasswing, and its Spanish name is espejitos, which means "little mirrors." Indeed, the tissue between the veins of its wings looks like glass. It is one of the more abundant clearwing species in its home range. The opaque borders of its wings are dark brown sometimes tinted with red or orange, and its body is dark in color. Its wingspan is between 5.5 and 6 cm.

Adults inhabit the rainforest understory and feed on the nectar of a variety of tropical flowers. G. oto prefers to lay its eggs on plants of the tropical nightshade genus Cestrum. The silvery-gray caterpillars feed on these toxic plants and store the alkaloids in their tissues, making them distasteful to predators such as birds. They retain their toxicity in adulthood. The same alkaloids that make them poisonous also are converted into pheromones by the males, which use them to attract females..

G. oto adults also exhibit a number of interesting behaviors, such as long migrations and lekking among males..

Greta oto Scientific classification

Domain:--- Eukaryota
Kingdom: ---Animalia
Phylum:--- Arthropoda
Class---: Insecta
Order:---Lepidoptera
Suborder: ---Ditrysia
Division:--- Rhopalocera
Superfamily: ---Papilionoidea
Family: ----Nymphalidae
Subfamily: ---Ithomiinae
Genus: ---Greta
Species:--- G. oto

12-28-05 ~ Hall of Fame #14

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 03-13-06 Military Monday 03-14-06....A Finest Pet Day ~ The Doggie Dictionary

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' Every Thursday at the Finest The guy's good, folks!

[Aquamarine]

Pacabel I think is hw it's spelled...

Did another search and it was spelled right Johann Pachebel but I have seen it spelled other ways.

[Aquamarine]

I just spelled it wrong on the link I gave you. Left an L out.

Anyway, glad you enjoyed it. :)

[Majie Purple]

I meant I probably mis-spelled it that's why I started out writing just a P...Where I put an a turns out it should have been an e...No worries! LOL! Thanks for pinging me the P's C in D page! Have a nice day!

[Majie Purple]

"I just spelled it wrong on the link I gave you. Left an L out."
My,what a difficult name to spell LOL! But oh so beautiful music makes up for that!

[Aquamarine]

I always worry about spelling something wrong since I made a Post one time and the T Man found 6 spelling errors. LOL

He keeps us on the straight and narrow in here. So be careful. ;)

[DollyCali]

where is Thin Man anyway? He has disappeared as has Meek One GOP.. I always enjoyed both of their contributions. And also Oesy..

[Jemian]

Hope For the Flowers by Trina Paulus. It goes through the cycle of metamorphosis and involves the caterpillar climbing the caterpillar pillar in an effort for advance to flight. There is a message behind the story and, I think, upholds Biblical values. It is an easy read and plenty of pictures.

[Aquamarine]

I was wondering where Meek had gone also. T Man comes in every now and then.

[Billie]

Hi, Aqua! Just putting the link to today's thread here - didn't get it done last night. :)

It's Thursday, and that means John's Two Cents!

[Mama_Bear]

Sorry, I didn't get back here last night after puppy class. I was thoroughly exhausted after being dragged around by my 8 pound little prince. We are in a class with a ten month old chocolate lab. Both Chachi and Pebbles think these classes are "play time".

NnB, I was honored to find your pretty butterfly poem in my table. You can steal borrow my graphics anytime.

Freema, I'm glad you are feeling better. That "walking pneumonia" is nothing to mess around with. My DIL is a high school teacher and says she has never seen so many kids out sick as she has this year. There is a lot of nasty stuff going around out there.

Maj, I just found your cute "gif" in my mailbox. How sweet of you. It has been ensconced on my hard drive in folder where all my bears live. Thank you so much.

Dolly, from my experience, there are many levels and types of nicotine withdrawal.....just depending upon people's individual reaction to their body having to adjust. When I quit smoking, six years ago this coming April 1st (Yippee, hooray!!!), I sank into a deep depression. Thanks to my wonderful and compassionate doctor (and my husband's patience with me), I survived it. Nicotine withdrawal seems to be effecting JK entirely different. But, I am SO proud of him for hanging in there. I think he's got it beat this time!

I guess it's time to mosey on over to Thursday's JH2 thread. See y'all there.

[LadyX]

"Got her! That was precious. Madame is sitting with her kitty, nursing a black eye! She ran into an elbow during dodgeball."

"I'm SHOCKED, I tell you - SHOCKED!!!"

Why, everbuddy knows dodgeball is a violent, utterly degrading game, defiinitely not politically correct in this more 'sensitive' day and age!

And here you are, freema-screamin' meemie mama - -
forcing yer little girl into participating in dangerous contact sports!!!

Next thing you know, she'll be in JRROTC,
and a bloomin' Marine Corps prospect..:))

'tis anuther SHOCK & AWE Day, I suspect...

[luvie]

I see you're staying calm over this. hee-hee!

[Aquamarine]

Hey MB, am tickled to hear that JK is kicking the tobacco habit.

I finally got around to having my ears pierced last week. Always was a late bloomer. lol

[DollyCali]

you are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO funny.. Hugs dear Maggie

[Mama_Bear]

Hi, little sistah! You will love having your ears pierced. Let's go shopping for earrings!!!

[Mama_Bear]

Hey MB, am tickled to hear that JK is kicking the tobacco habit.

I am so very proud of him. Nicotine is an insidious drug that takes over your entire life. Quitting is no easy feat. He is doing great, he just needs to stick with it. I keep telling him that it will get easier, but it takes a long time to break a 35 year nicotine addiction.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Really nice, thanks Aqua.

[PreviouslyA-Lurker]

Sorry about your evening plans, Dolly.

I work part time at a health food store. They were having an anniversary sale last night to celebrate 11 years in business and the employees were invited to decorate a hat for an unnamed prize. I enjoy being creative and a coworker at my full time job suggested that I decorate a hat to look like a cake. So I bought an inexpensive plastic stove pipe hat at a party store. I cut up a brown paper bag and glued it to the hat down to the brim, which was to serve as a "plate" for my "cake". I glued red lentils around the top edge and oatmeal in the center. I made a single scalloped row of red lentils, then green split peas, then a big scallop row of yellow split peas coming down from the above 2 rows with oatmeal between each of the scalloped rows. I then glued small red kidney beans along the bottom edge and brown flax seeds between the row of kidney beans and the yellow split peas, so they were on the bottom 1/3 of the "cake". I borrowed a hot glue gun. I broke off about 2/3 of the grain from bottom section of wheat and stuck those in cinnamon sticks which were glued to the top of the cake/hat as candles and the wheat as the candle flame. I do not yet know if I won the contest, but for once I did something fun - besides FReeping ; )

Sorry I could not be a poet for you Amy, but my creativity lies elsewhere ; )

[PreviouslyA-Lurker]

Aww, thank you Mama Bear.

[Majie Purple]

"...Thank you so much."
You are so welcome!