Vanessa cardui
This morning one of our Painted Lady butterflies emerged from it's chrysalid. It is currently working very hard at the moment to pump blood through it's wings so that they will be full size and hardened. It is an amazing thing, metamorphosis.
Painted Lady butterflies can lay up to 500 eggs, are cold blooded, love a weed called malva, have a life expectancy of two to four weeks, tastes with her feet, has ten thousand eyes (compound eyes), breathes through her abdomen, uses her colored wings to attract other butterflies, and prefers to fly in daytime.
What a tremendous amount of work turning into a butterfly for just two to four weeks, huh?
Posted by gwendolyn on June 06, 2003 at 10:19 AM