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]

[Mama_Bear]

what, prettier than the Star War's Thread????? noway!

LOL. Well, only 'slightly'. How's that? ;-)

:-) I haven't localed the pix from Stan Hywet & "us's".. but I didn't go to the butterfly house with you that day! I stayed & cleanup from lunch.. if you or amy have a few pix to post that would be great

We didn't go to the butterfly house either, we went on a tour of the mansion....which was fabulous! I wish we'd have had more time to see the butterflies and also the play that evening. So much to do and so little time. :-(

[JustAmy]

Good morning, NnB

I remember that butterfly poem. Thanks for re-posting it.

[JustAmy]

Beautiful thread, Dolly.

I haven't had time to read it but the graphics are wonderful.

I didn't make it to the Butterfly House when we were there last year. We ran out of time. :(

I have to do some boring stuff today but I hope to be back later.

Thank you for today's thread.

[Mama_Bear]

Don't work to hard. :)

Well, I doubt that is likely to happen. I'm still sitting here in my robe at the computer, neglecting my chores for this morning....but it is only 8:30 on the left coast, the day is young yet. I'd much rather play here on this pretty butterfly thread.

[LadyX]

ugh..um gawa...

[ help me!! ]

[DollyCali]

Oh I thought that you also took in the conservatory.. I recall Amy's knees were hurting her. I got to the SH about a dozen times last year. This year they closed it Jan - March. I am in withdrawal. I love the grounds in winter.

Actually you all know I am teasing about the star war's thread.. It was one of my first threads & I was detemined to learn by digging in. I got the HTML skeleton from either Dutchess or aquamarine .. I asked for dark with light letters.. and I didn't yet know about our friend blockquote. I would love to try something like that again (and prolly will) now that I have a little more skill level.

It was NOT meant to be a sweet little thread but just more bold... as were the movies..I am really not the sweet thread poster of the lot, as you know.. the rest of you do it all too well.

well need to leave now.. later all

[MEG33]

May God Keep Safe All Who Serve Our Country

[Mama_Bear]

I am really not the sweet thread poster of the lot, as you know.. the rest of you do it all too well.

Well, if you say so. But if you keep posting 'sweet' threads like this, you might just have to revise your opinion of yourself. ;-)

As I recall, your Star Wars post had 'character' and your design fit the theme well. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, but I enjoyed it. I admire you for jumping in with both feet. But I think we all inwardly cringe a bit when we recall our very first posts here. I don't even want to go back and look at mine!

Have a good day, sistah. As much as I hate to leave the thread, I have GOT to. TTYL

[Mama_Bear]

Oh, isn't that lovely!?! And how appropriate for today's thread!

[MEG33]

;) I just remembered that butterfly!

[Mama_Bear]

Okay, I'm procrastinating, I know. This has nothing to do with butterflies, but today is March 15th, so......

Beware the Ides of March!

The ominous warning, "Beware the Ides of March," originated with the Roman
ruler, Julius Caesar, who was assassinated on the Ides of March - March 15, 44
B.C.E. If you've heard the ominous warning, then it's most likely due to William
Shakespeare and his play, Julius Caesar.

The warning itself was made famous in Shakespeare's play on Julius Caesar,
when an unidentified soothsayer tells Caesar, who is on his way to the Senate
(and his death), "Beware the ides of March." Caesar replies, "He is a dreamer;
let us leave him. Pass."

---

Now I shall go and get my work done. :-)

[MEG33]

A Florida Butterfly

[freema]

This is such a wonderful thread, and I'm tickled I posted my first picture on this particular thread most of all.

[5by5]

My daughter insists on calling them "flutterflies" because she says they OBVIOUSLY have nothing to do with butter.

She raised monarchs with her class but they released them into the wild. Her current kick is to raise and breed praying mantids. We're waiting for the third generation to hatch. Unfortunately mantids only eat live food so we also had to start breeding fruit flies and crickets...

I hate to dampen the enthusiasm of bright children but enough is enough!

[MEG33]

(((((((freema))))))

[MEG33]

LOL!

[Chanticleer]

We tried raising crickets when my kids had frogs and turtles. It's great when they get loose in the house and serenade you all night long!

[MEG33]

I really must get to work! BBL

[LadyX]

What a beautiful presentation of this lovely subject!
We so appreciate all the efforts you make to delight us, Dolly,
day in and day out.