Butterflies and Moths

What a beautiful moth! I caught this one of a kind moth last month. It's hard to capture them with bare hands so I just managed to just zoom-in the lens of my digital camera instead to keep the moth "stood still" or at rest on the leaf of the dahlia plant. On the leaf! On the leaves. It's not on the flowers. I would like to ask  the moth but moth can't talk and wont talk because it's an insect. Remember that moth cabbage are yellowish-white in color or white simply because of the color of cabbage. Cabbage is a ball of thick leaves and moths love them, rather those small caterpillars who ate and fattened themselves with cabbage.


I looked and searched for the name of this rare find of moth but it's not in my list. It's not in the book (The New Book of Knowledge -Encyclopedia). What could be the name of this moth? Hard to know. There are 112,000 different kinds of moths and butterflies in the world. Imagine that? Would you believe that in United States and Canada the population of butterflies has probably reached 700 kinds of butterflies and moths up to 7,000 to 9,000. Well the survey was before year 1981. How about now? Hard to believe. To see is to believe. Knowing the monarch butterflies can group themselves in thousands above branches of tall trees.



What's the difference of the butterfly from a moth? It's appearance and manner of how they fold to rest their wings when gathering pollen and how they flutter their wings on air. They both differ in color of scales. Under microscope, the butterfly's wings looked-like pattern of scales.

MOTHS have pale colors depend on what they eat for food. Some of them have darker scales or hairy featherlike plumes. Moths are active at night and are attracted by lights. Moths have thicker, hairy bodies. When at rest, the moths usually fold their front wings back upon their hind ones. Their tips are never enlarged.

BUTTERFLY. The butterfly on top of the lily is a swallowtail. Sorry, I can't capture  different species of butterfly. Most of the species of butterflies have beautiful, bright colorful attractive colors of wings or scales. Yes their hairy, velvety texture bodies are called scales. Butterflies are active during daytime. When at rest, the butterfly leaves its slightly enlarged tips. Butterflies are more beautiful than most moths.

Butterfly and moths have similarities too such as:
1. Both have two pairs of wings.
2. They both have 2 antennaes or feelers. They used their senses, actually some of them have ESP.
3. Butterflies and moths undergo 4 stages of life called METAMORPHOSIS.



FOUR STAGES of LIFE:

First Stage - Egg
Second Stage - Caterpillar
Third Stage - Pupa
Fourth Stage- Butterfly or Moth