Butterfly And Moth: Life Cycles (1968)

e [Music] in almost every part of the world some kinds of moths and butterflies are common here in the Western United States especially in the springtime many of the more than 105,000 different species of butterflies and moths can be found all of these species species of butterflies and moths make up the insect order called lepidoptera lepidoptera means scale winged and it is the tiny scales on the wings of these creatures which give them their vivid colors and the elaborate designs for which many of them are famous if you look closely at the wing of a lepidopteran you can begin to see the scales with a microscope you can see that there are many thousands of these scales scales overlapping each other like shingles on a roof from below you can see that a lepidopteran like all insects has a three-part body composed of head thorax and abdomen they also have three pairs of legs and like most insects they have two pairs of wings lepidopterans are similar to each other in many more ways all lepidopterans have similar sense organs there are four eyes two compound eyes like this one and two simple eyes which are hidden in the hair behind each of the compound eyes contains thousands of light sensitive cells and in addition to these elaborate eyes lepidopterans are also Guided by their sense of smell which is located in their antenna many lepidopterans also have a primitive sense of hearing which operates when the hairs along the body send reports of sound waves to the brain but their most curious sense organs are located on the soles of their feet these are two incredibly sensitive organs of taste after a lepidopteran has located a flower with its antenna its sense of taste located in its feet tells it whether or not there is any nectar if there is the nectar is drawn up through the long feeding tube because moths and butterflies are alike in so many ways people often do not know how to tell them apart yet a few Simple Rules will allow you to distinguish between them the easiest rule is that moths almost never fly in the daytime and butterflies almost never fly at night most butterflies are only active during the day while most moths only begin to come out at dusk another simple test has to do with the way lepidopterans hold their wings while they are at rest butterflies usually hold their wings up so the top surfaces of the Wings come together moths usually keep their wings open so that the top surfaces are visible another difference is in the antenna of the two creatures butterflies have antenna with Club likee ends such as this one the antenna of moths are usually feathered they are nearly always pointed like these mods also have thicker and hairier bodies than butterflies and they are usually not so brightly colored now if we look closely at the lives of one moth and one butterfly and see how they live we can find many other differences and similarities between them first we will follow through the life cycle of a typical butterfly the red Admiral to see the stages of its development and its way of life here is an adult female looking for a spot to lay its eggs the thistle plant is one of the red Admiral's favorite places for laying eggs because the caterpillars which will hatch from the eggs eat the thistle leaves and the plant Stingers protect the caterpillars from being eaten by birds the female butterfly will usually lay a single light green egg on each plant a tiny barrel-shaped Speck of Life the shells of these eggs are transparent so with the time-lapse camera we can see movement inside as the egg develops into a caterpillar and begins to hatch the caterpillar fights its way free of the egg case and emerges it looks nothing at all like the butterfly from which it came and into which it will develop the caterpillar has no wings and it does not eat in the same way as an adult butterfly the caterpillars eat leaves and they begin almost to soon as they are out of the egg they have voracious appetites which force them to eat almost continually ually and as they eat they grow but the caterpillar's skins do not stretch so as they grow the caterpillars become too large for their skins then they must mol this means that their hard outer skins crack open the caterpillar will crawl out of its old skin leaving it behind and revealing a new skin beneath most caterpillars mol from four to 10 times as they develop and each time they mol they change slightly they get bigger and their coloring may change also so that they look like an entirely different species in most parts of the United States there may be two or three different generations of red Admirals every summer so you are likely to see many sizes and colors of caterpillars of the same species all at once eventually each of the caterpillars stops eating and prepares for the last stage of its development the formation of the Chrysalis let's see how the Chrysalis is formed here we can see the beginnings of this process as the caterpillar attaches itself to a twig now it begins the changes which will produce a butterfly here with the time-lapse camera we can see what happens on the outside but the most startling changes take place within if the Chrysalis forms early in the summer it may last only a few weeks if it forms in the fall it will last until spring then it breaks open and reveals this Splendid New Creation this stage is called the adult or AO from a crawling caterpillar a flying Jewel has been created at first the adults wings are wet and weak for they have been folded up within the chrysalis but fluids which have been stored in the body are pumped into the veins of the Wings they stretch out and begin to harden and soon the butterfly is off searching for food it eats liquid nectar now not leaves as the caterpillar did and soon it will mate and the entire life cycle will be repeated once again now let's find a moth from this same area and compare its life history to that of the butterfly the life cycle of The Magnificent Promethea moth is very similar to that of the red Admiral here is a female Promethea laying eggs on a Twi the eggs look like tiny pearls but Within These pearls there is life soon the Promethea caterpillars are stirring inside the eggs here one breaks through the egg case and strug struggles out onto the leaf which is both its home and its food unlike most butterfly caterpillars which feed alone moth caterpillars usually feed together like these which are quickly eating up the leaf on which they are working but the moth caterpillars eat no less than the butterfly caterpillars and they grow no less slowly soon they too must Mol they go through the same struggle to free themselves of the Skins which have become too small like the butterfly caterpillars they mol a number of times they change with each mol they become larger and more spectacular the Promethea caterpillars develop protective colors and knobs which look almost like light bulbs and like the red Admiral the Promethea sometimes has two generations in a summer so they too may be seen in various sizes on a single shrub but by the time they have grown from the thickness of a straw to the thickness of a man's thumb they will begin to build their cocoons the Promethea curls a leaf around itself and builds its cocoon inside so that the leaf will not fall from its Branch during the winter the caterpillar fastens the leaf securely with silk which is made in a special gland just under its mouth this thread of shiny silk is so fine that it is almost invisible yet it ties the leaf securely to the stem then within the leaf it spins more silk for the Cocoon which will keep it safe through the winter even at very cold temperatures the Cocoon which all moths build is another of the differences between moths and butterflies the butterflies simply hang themselves up and change into a chrysalis while the moths make silken homes like this for themselves and live within them during the cold days of winter when spring comes the dormant life inside begins to waken the Cocoon cracks and then breaks over open the new moth Works its way free and emerges full grown an Imago but like the butterfly its wings are limp and wet it must fill the wing veins with fluid and let them Harden before it can fly but soon it too is ready to fly off in search of the blossoms which will nourish it until mating time when it begins its reproductive cycle once again the Promethea moth and the red Admiral butterfly are both typical lepidopterans the red Admirals complex life from egg to Lea eaing caterpillar to Chrysalis to nectar drinking adult is typical of the millions of butterflies around the world the changes which are a part of these life cycles are repeated endlessly by the other members of The order they are typical both in their complexity and in their beauty two bright flying insects one a moth and one a butterfly are lepidopterans found here in the Western United States they are two of the many lepidopterans of the world [Music]