Common Buckeye Butterfly

Facts about Common Buckeye Butterfly, "Scientific name for Common Buckeye Butterfly Junonia Coenia type butterfly that comes from the Nymphalidae family. The Common Buckeye Butterfly are largely found in the southern parts of Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia and all other parts of the United States, excluding the northwest, and are particularly widespread in the south, the California coastline, and all through Colombia and Central America. Usually, Common Buckeye butterflies prefer to live in homes in open areas with low plants and some exposed ground, including roadsides, old fields, utility corridors, parks, gardens, yards, fallow agricultural land, pine savannas, scrubs and weed lots. The Common Buckeye Butterfly is named for its obvious target-formed eyespots.

Features

The Common Buckeye Butterfly is an average-sized butterfly with several big, noticeable circular eyespots. An adult Common Buckeye Butterfly has wingspan, ranging from 45 mm to 70 mm. Generally, female Common Buckeye Butterfly are bigger than the males and they have more rounded front wings.

The Common Buckeye butterfly has a distinctive bold outline of eyespots and white color bars on the surface of their upper wing when compared to other varieties of butterflies in its family. The eyespots of the are likely to serve to alarm or divert their predators, particularly young birds. This butterfly has several flights all through the year, with frequently migrating to the northern parts of the United States during the summer season. Much of the northern parts of the United States are colonized in the fall only by these butterflies migrating from the southern parts of the country. A few of the later broods use to migrate southwards during the fall. Common Buckeye butterflies show cyclic polyphenism, the summer adaptation of the butterfly has light yellow color ventral wings and is known as Linea. The fall adaptation of the butterfly has pink color ventral wings, which is known as Rosa.

Diet

Adult Common Buckeye butterflies feed on nectar and also acquire liquids from sludge and wet sand. The caterpillars feed on the flowers, foliage and fruits of the plant they grow.

Breeding

The Common Buckeye butterfly will produce numerous generations every year. Adult butterflies may be found during all months of the year, and they have a swift, irregular flight low to the earth and are fairly cautious of close approach.

Male Common Buckeye butterflies that rest on open grounds or low vegetation occasionally use to patrol looking for females, but they are not protective. The female Common Buckeye Butterfly lays her green-colored single eggs on the upper side of leaves or on sprouts. The caterpillars are lonely and they feed on the flowers, foliage and fruits of the host plant. They feed on a range of food plants, usually herbaceous plants, as well as plants, particularly in the snapdragon family, such as Scrophulariaceae. These comprise snapdragon, toadflax and Gerardia. These caterpillars also feed on food plants that belong to the plantain family, like Plantago and the plants of the Acanthus family as well as Ruellia nodiflora. The Larvae of the Common Buckeye Butterfly use to feed individually. Adult Common Buckeye butterflies and a few larvae overwinter in the southern parts of the United States. The pupa of these butterflies may not boast a resting stage like in several other butterfly varieties.

A Common Buckeye Butterfly has three pairs of legs and their feet have little claws that help them stand on flowers. The butterfly's wings are made up of hard tubes that are covered with a thin tissue. The Common Buckeye Butterfly wings are covered with fine dusty like scales. A Common Buckeye Butterfly has four brightly colored wings having distinctive patterns made up of tiny scales. The bright patterns scales sometimes have hidden ultraviolet patterns for attracting mates. The bright colors are also used as camouflage to hide them or scare off predictors.

Common Buckeye Butterfly are insects. A Common Buckeye Butterfly is a herbivore; Meaning that as a caterpillar its first food is its own eggshell and than it will eat the leaves of the plant on which it is hatched. When it becomes a butterfly, it will feed mostly on nectar from flowers, rotting fruit and water with a "proboscis" - a long narrow tube in their mouth that looks like a straw.

Life cycle of a butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Common Buckeye Butterfly will attach its eggs to leaves with a special glue.

When caterpillars become fully grown they will attach to an appropriate leaf or small branch, than they will shed the outside layer of their skin and a hard skin underneath known as a "chrysalis" will be their new look
An adult Common Buckeye Butterfly will come out from the "chrysalis" than it waits a few hours for its wings to dry and fill with blood, before it takes its first flight.

Common Buckeye Butterfly can see yellow, green, and red. An adult Common Buckeye Butterfly average life span is from a week to a year
The top flight speed of a Common Buckeye Butterfly is 12 miles per hour (19 Km/ph) and some moths can fly up to 25 miles per hour (40 Km/ph).
A Common Buckeye Butterfly is cold-blooded, which means the body temperature is not regulated on its own. A Common Buckeye Butterfly can't fly or eat if their body temperature is below 82 degrees fah (28 cel). Common Buckeye Butterfly are often basking in the sun with their wings open to gain heat and than the veins in the wings carry the heat to the body.
A Common Buckeye Butterfly has sense organ, on their feet or tarsi, for tasting
The estimate is between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly.

A Common Buckeye Butterfly has a small body, made up of three parts – the head, abdomen and thorax. A Butterfly has two large eyes, which are made up of many small parts which are called "compound eyes".
A Common Buckeye Butterfly has two antenna's on the top of their heads, which they use to smell, hear and feel. A Common Buckeye Butterfly mouth is a long tube a "proboscis" - a long narrow tube in their mouth that looks like a straw when its done eating, it rolls the tube back up.