Find more for your garden
Garden Buildings Direct

Where Do Butterflies Come From?

Like so many other living creatures on Earth, the butterfly’s life begins as an egg. Different species of butterflies lay different amounts of eggs. The eggs are tiny, only one to two millimeters, and are laid on a leaf of the host plant. The host plant will become the food for the larva after it’s born. A sticky fluid secreted by the female butterfly attaches the eggs to the plant. There they wait, for about a week, until they hatch into caterpillars, also called larva. 

Now the feasting begins! The caterpillars will eat for two to four weeks, devouring leaves and plants. It will outgrow its skin several times, as its size increases. Each time the skin is shed, new skin appears, soft and moist. When the caterpillar has accumulated enough fat, it stops eating, and nearly stops moving. It may wander away from the plant in search of a good place pupate (become a pupa). Depending on the species of butterfly, the caterpillar may dangle from a plant when it pupates, or attach itself to the plant’s surface, or crawl into some other sheltered spot. 

After the caterpillar has settled into its chosen place to pupate, one of two possibilities occurs. If it will change while hanging from a plant, it first must spin a silken pad, used to anchor it to the plant. It does this by using its lower lip, or jaw spinnerets. Once complete, the caterpillar clamps onto the pad with its rear claspers, and remains this way until metamorphosis is complete. Species that do not hang while they change simply spin a silken harness to secure them to the plant. Then the pupal skin forms beneath the caterpillar’s old skin. In about a day, the caterpillar molts one last time, and the pupa, or chrysalis is formed.

The final stage of a butterfly is most wondrous! Scientists still struggle to understand all the details of this metamorphosis. The word metamorphosis comes for the Greek, to transform. And that’s exactly what happens inside the chrysalis. The caterpillar liquefies its structure and tissues changing into that of a butterfly. This transformation takes up to two weeks to complete, and then, out of the chrysalis emerges a beautiful butterfly! Its wings are crumpled, and it cannot yet fly. By pumping liquid into the veins of its wings, they stretch and expand into their full size. Soon the butterfly will begin seeking a mate. But there isn’t much time to spare, because the life span of an adult butterfly is not much more than a month!

BUTTERFLY CRAFTS FOR KIDS

http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk

Call Me Back

Tell us your details and we will give you a call back as soon as possible. We will endeavour to return all callback requests made up to 6pm weekdays. After which time, we will call you back the following day.

Your Name:
Your Email:
Ringback reason:
Preferred time:
Telephone 1:
Telephone 2: (optional)
http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk

Price Match on the

Price promise - We aim to be lowest price online. If you have seen the same product or a like for like product then please let us know by filling in the form below, and we will do our best to beat that price.

Your name:
Your email:
Your Telephone:
Which option have you seen cheaper elsewhere:
Price found: £
Price location? (url if possible):
Other info (e.g additional options/delivery costs):

Thank you. Your submission has been received successfully and you will hear a reply back from one of our sales team shortly.

Sorry, there was an error with your submission, please try again later.

http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk

Ask a question on the

Your Firstname:
Your Surname:
Your Email:
Your Telephone:
Your Question: We endeavour to respond to your question within 4 working hours.

The retail sites operated by Kybotech Ltd may send enquirers updates on products, offers and services by email so you can get a feel for whether you wish to deal with us. If you would prefer not to receive these, please do let us know. Your personal data will remain confidential as per our privacy policy.


Thank you. Your question has been received successfully and you will hear a reply back from one of our team as soon as possible.

Sorry, there was an error submitting your question, please try again later.

Your feedback is very important to us and we use this to continually improve our websites, services and products. We read all feedback left but may not show all comments received on the website.

Based on the price you paid, please leave feedback and rate our website, service and product.

Rate the product, website and service from zero to five stars

Click on the Star to select your rating:
1 Star rating 2 Star rating 3 Star rating 4 Star rating 5 Star rating
      

The Small Print

We are pleased to receive your contributions to the website (these include tips, discussion groups, product feedback and anywhere else that your contributions are included on the website). We point out that the website is international and is accessible throughout the world and that by contributing in any way to the website, as above, you are consenting to the publication of your contribution on Simply Greenhouses and to linked kybotech sites. Kybotech reads all feedback but reserves the right to edit any contributions where necessary.

Fast Home Delivery

At GardenBuildingsDirect we pride ourselves on offering a fast and friendly delivery service. Some of our product ranges have varied estimated delivery times so to give you an idea we’ve calculated our typical average delivery time for each product range and popped them in the table below:

Delivery Table

*Please note that our average typical delivery times are dependent on delivery location and stock availability – please see individual product pages for a more detailed estimation