What insects eat is related to what kind of mouth organs they have. In other words, the structure of the mouth organ is suitable for eating habits. Butterflies, like moths, are chewing mouthparts. Chewing mouthpieces are the most primitive type of mouthpieces, and other mouthpieces have evolved from this basic form. The chewable mouthpiece has a well-developed and hard palate and teeth that are suitable for chewing solid foods. Caterpillars are famous for their gluttony, and they seem to live for one thing – to eat plants.
Laugh at yourself for the sake of your mouth
Rice buds, the larvae of the rice butterfly, often spit silk to make the rice leaves into cylindrical longitudinal roll buds, and then secretly eat them, which seriously affects the growth of rice and the ears. The larvae of cotton bollworm are important pests of the cotton bud stage, mainly feeding on flower buds and cotton bolls, but also on young leaves. The larvae of the vegetable powder butterfly are commonly known as vegetable green worms (easily confused with the larvae of the small cabbage moth), and they are fond of cruciferous plants, and often bite cabbage, kale and other vegetable leaves. The larvae of the gardenia gray butterfly and the pod gray butterfly feed on the gardenia young fruit or the tender pod, respectively. However, the larvae of aphid butterflies are not vegetarians, they are rare beneficial insects among butterfly larvae, feeding exclusively on aphids, which can effectively inhibit the harm of aphids to plants.
Vegetable powder butterfly (Photo by Chen Qinyong)
Xu (yín) said that "the green insects are dehulled", which is "overwhelmed by smoke and rain". In fact, although butterflies change from larvae to pupae and then adults, although they have a certain relationship with the external environment, the fundamental reason is that the internal tissues and organs have to undergo adaptive changes - in addition to feathering out two pairs of gorgeous wings, it is more important that the mouth organs should be transformed.
"Strange flowers bloom butterflies fly", "The peach blossoms on the mountain are red like fire, and the butterflies are flying again". Flowers bloom and butterflies come. What are the butterflies busy with in the spring? Of course, he is busy solving the needs of the mouth. Butterfly larvae feed on the stems, leaves, or young fruits of plants by chewing mouthparts, while adult butterflies prefer to suck sweet nectar from the bottom of the flower. For sucking nectar, the chewing mouthpiece has no place, so the adult butterfly has evolved a siphon mouthpiece. The distinctive feature of this mouthpiece is a straw-like beak that bends and stretches. When not feeding, the beak spirals like a clockwork, and when feeding, it is straightened by the pressure of muscles and blood. This retractable mouthpiece allows the butterfly to suck the nectar hidden deep at the bottom of the flower distance, and does not hinder its flight.
Nature's long evolution to produce such a wonderful masterpiece not only helps lepidoptera insects such as butterflies to feed their stomachs, but also makes them shoulder the noble mission of pollinating plants.
Amorous butterflies take advantage of the flowers to fly
In 1862, Darwin published Fertilization of Orchids, describing the ingenious structure of orchids in attracting insects to pollinate them. Each orchid has a precise pollen delivery system, which he believes is an incredible evolutionary chapter written by nature and a strong proof of the theory of natural selection.
This year, when he first saw the large white comet orchid from Madagascar, Darwin's wise eyes were attracted by its distinctive elongated flower pattern. Flower spacing is not uncommon in angiosperms, it is usually a tubular protrusion formed by the base of the calyx or petal extending outwards, and the honey juice of the flower is stored in the flower spacing. Incredibly, the Great Comet Orchid hides nectar at the bottom of a narrow flowering rectangle about 30 cm deep, what kind of insects can eat these nectars?
Darwin geniusly predicted that there must be an insect with slender mouthparts living in the area, whose mouthparts are just long enough to reach the bottom of the flower spacing to obtain nectar, and in return, this insect can also help the large comet orchid to pollen. 41 years later, such an insect was finally discovered in Madagascar – a large moth with a long beak of about 30 centimeters, resembling both hummingbirds and butterflies.
Long-beaked moth and large comet orchid
Darwin's conjecture laid the groundwork for the emergence of the "coevolution" theory. In 1964, while studying the evolutionary effects of pink butterflies and cruciferous plants on each other, American butterfly expert Paul Ehrlich and botanist Peter Raven proposed the concept of "co-evolution". Coevolution generally refers to the phenomenon of mutual adaptation developed by two closely related and interacting species over a long evolutionary process.
"Looking for beauty and rejuvenation, it seems to be idle and busy." When butterflies suck nectar on different flowers, they can carry pollen from one flower to another to achieve pollination. Plants provide delicacies for butterflies, and butterflies spread pollen to plants, and the two are mutually beneficial. Most flowering plants rely on insect pollination, and the appearance, color, and shape and length of the flowers of the plants can be selected from insects – only suitable insects can eat nectar and pollinate them.
For example, butterflies prefer erect flowers, while moths tend to be flat or falling flowers. Butterfly pollinated flowers that bloom during the day, while flowers that bloom at night are favored by moths. Butterflies are lustful, they look for brightly colored flowers such as red, blue, yellow, and orange, while moths generally pollinate plants with white or pale flowers. Insect-borne flowers mediated by moths and butterflies all emit a sweet smell, and the honey glands usually grow at the base of the slender flower spacing, and only the siphon-type mouthparts of moths and butterflies can reach in and lick food.
On the other hand, the feeding habits of insects can also choose plants. For example, the blue butterfly loves the nectar of lily plants; the vegetable powder butterfly loves cruciferous plants; and the leopard butterfly has a special love for the nectar of plants in the Asteraceae family. By choosing each other and adapting to each other, plants and insects have established a specific pollination mechanism: different plants need different insects to pollinate, and different insects also feed on different plants.
Fei Leopard Butterfly (Photo by Chen Qinyong)
Flip-floppy butterfly love flower love
"Mandarin ducks are companions, lace butterflies are home." Butterflies are inseparable from flowers, and flowers are inseparable from butterflies, and the mutual adaptation of butterflies and flowering plants is a model of co-evolution. So, are there butterflies or flowers on earth first?
Previously, the scientific community believed that the emergence of siphon mouthparts was an evolution that occurred in adaptation to sucking nectar. However, recent research by Dutch evolutionary biologist Timo Vaildijk and others has shown that while butterflies play a key pollinatory role in today's Earth's ecosystems, butterflies existed long before flowering plants appeared. It's just that early in evolution— when butterflies first appeared about 200 million years ago— they probably replenished their water by sucking up water droplets and exudate from broken leaves.
To this day, a small number of butterflies still retain this original trait, for example, the dead leaf butterfly and the glazed butterfly feed mainly on decaying fruits or sap. Other butterflies carry this primitive trait forward, for example, in the hot summer, the swallow butterfly often absorbs water on the creek beach while rhythmically shooting water from the tail, using moisture to take away heat and reduce body temperature
Glass Butterfly (Photo by Chen Qinyong)
As the evolutionary process progressed, gymnosperms appeared, and butterflies soon tasted the sweetness of the nutrient-rich pollination droplets of gymnosperms. However, the primitive butterfly only unilaterally used gymnosperms, until about 150 million years ago, after the birth of the flowering plant, the butterfly also played a pollinator role in sucking nectar, and the two sides formed a mutually beneficial relationship, so the butterfly and the flowering plant began to co-evolve.
Regarding butterfly love flowers, Su Shi has a poem that is particularly famous: "Tomorrow's yellow flower butterflies are also sad." "In autumn, chrysanthemums bloom alone, is the only butterfly leaning, after the Chongyang Festival, the chrysanthemum color is greatly reduced, about to wither, obsessed with chrysanthemum butterflies, can not help but frown tightly. Flowers and butterflies are interdependent, and breaking off any link can cause a series of unpredictable problems. As the American meteorologist Edward Lorentz put it: A butterfly in the Amazon jungle flaps its wings occasionally, and two weeks later it could trigger a tornado in Texas.
There is indeed a similar "butterfly effect" in the biological world: a seemingly insignificant act, such as picking it casually because we like the fragrance of flowers, or catching it at will because we appreciate the beauty of butterflies, can have an unpredictable impact on the ecological environment on which we live. As Edward Wilson, the founder of sociobiology, put it: "The soil, water, and atmosphere on the earth's surface have evolved through the activity of the biosphere for hundreds of millions of years to reach this state." And this biologically composed, extremely complex biosphere, in which the activities are closely interlinked by the extremely precise but fragile flow of earth's energy and the circulation of organic matter. "No matter which direction we go to change the biosphere, we will divert the environment from this ingenious dance of life."
Hummingbird hawk moth, a species of the genus Long-beaked Lycaenidae
"Bright red has not allowed the beauty to see, and the butterflies are scrambling to know that they have arrived early." Although this is a wonderful poem written by the Tang Dynasty poet Rong Yu about hibiscus flowers, we can also see the butterfly's love for flowers. "When the butterflies dance to find incense", when the spring flowers bloom, butterflies and flowers dance together.
Butterflies are the love messengers of flowers, and flowers are butterflies' food suppliers, and the two cooperate for a win-win situation. However, butterflies have both angelic cute appearances and demonic vicious hearts. They also often carry a little bootleg when working with flowers: they quietly lay their eggs on the branches and leaves of these plants so that their larvae can hatch without worrying about eating and drinking. This is how the butterfly, for example, treats cruciferous plants. Butterfly larvae that nibble on plants with chewing mouthparts may be pests, but adult butterflies are beneficial insects that contribute to the maintenance of ecological balance by pollinating plants.