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

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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!

[DollyCali]

Mine isn't a poety thread, although as you may have noted I normally try to include some poetry on many subjects.

[tuliptree76]

I'll try...

(I'm not sure what to do though.)

[Majie Purple]

So lovely All of it! And I looooove "P's Canon in D" Pacabel I think is hw it's spelled...LOL that's why I just wrote P's at first!

[DollyCali]

well, your pet is a hard one to take for an outing!

movies? hikes? zoo? museums? One thing in life I have never had a problem with...

finding things to do in free time ...

[Kitty Mittens]

Thank you, Sweet FRiend!

[tuliptree76]

I don't have much free time anymore. That's why my FReep time keeps dwindling.

[DollyCali]

[tuliptree76]

Good night, Dolly.

[DollyCali]

your post really brought back memories.. I recall as a youngster watching Walt Disney each Sunday night(or was it Saturday?).. and there was a rotation of types of shows.. the nature ones were fun but painful. The natural predator /victim(dinner) was always painful to me. As a biology student in college I was still much too naive as I really DID NOT WANT TO KNOW OF & SEE THIS AWFUL stuff.

[DollyCali]

To all who made this a fun & clever thread today. I really tried hard to NOT make this the deep technical thread on butterflies that all good biologists would do (yup that was one of my undergrad majors)... and you all shared some marvelous things here & I thank you. Sweet dreams & 14 angels attend you all dear FRiends.

[luvie]

THANK YOU, DOLLY, FOR A BEAUTIFUL DAY OF FLUTTERBYS!

[MEG33]

Geraniums with Petunias Good Afternoon To The Finest
th_eosbankersgranite1bpink009

[MEG33]

LOL..I hit post while I was tweaking! Thank you for the thread..Just finished doctoring our kitty Diva's eye and thought I'd post you some flowers!..It's afternoon somewhere!..and that isn't a link I left there..just shorthand while I am experimenting!!

[Chanticleer]

I have a question for you. My daughter is to read a book to the younger children visiting our botanical gardens for the Earth Day celebration. She is allowed to pick the book, but it has to be appropriate, and we have to turn in the title today. Do you know of any books that may look at nature from a conservative or nonpolitical point of view? Our default choice is The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, but if you know of others, I'd love it if you'd let us know.

[DollyCali]

PINGING SOME OF MY READING FRiends for an answer ASAP for Chanticleer, if you can help. Daughter seems to be about 8-10.. She needs a response today.. and I am curious now too!!!!

I have a question for you. My daughter is to read a book to the younger children visiting our botanical gardens for the Earth Day celebration. She is allowed to pick the book, but it has to be appropriate, and we have to turn in the title today. Do you know of any books that may look at nature from a conservative or nonpolitical point of view? Our default choice is The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, but if you know of others, I'd love it if you'd let us know.

C.. pinging the others here who might know, I am a pretty empty well for book recommendations..

[Carolinamom]

Off the top of my head titles: The Secret Garden, The Seed Folks, and James and the Giant Peach.

I'm not really up on children's lit these days, so these might not fit this occasion.

[DollyCali]

see post 275 with some ideas from Carolina mom & check back now & then as the people may ping me rather than you with the responses..and I wont be here all day to give responses... Molly Pitcher is a librarian & Jemian a teacher so they may have some ideas if they check their pings & have time to resond.

[DollyCali]

lol.. thanks for pretty pix... I can't tell you how often I have a little surprise when I post...unless it is really embarrassing, I don't have mods delete..

[DollyCali]

you are welcome Luv.. thanks for your input (and I love the font colorizer.. use it a lot.).

[Chanticleer]

Thanks so much for your suggestions. It needs to be something that can be read outloud in a relatively short time -- most likely a picture book -- something geared towards the 1st grade and under set.