Eastern Comma Butterfly

Facts about Eastern Comma Butterfly, "Scientific name for Eastern Comma Butterfly is Polygonia comma". Eastern Comma Butterfly is a variety of butterfly that belongs to the Polygonia genus of the Nymphalidae family. The Eastern Comma Butterfly are native to North America, and they live in forest close to ponds, rivers, swamps, marshes, and other water resources.

Features

The Eastern Comma Butterfly is a cyclically variable butterfly, with a wingspan, ranging from 1 13/16 inches to 2 1/2 inches (4.5 to 6.3 cm). The upper sides of the summer forms back wings of the Eastern Comma Butterfly are totally black in color, whereas the winter forms back wings of it are reddish-orange in color. The underside of both summer and winter forms of the Eastern Comma Butterfly is lined with light and dark brown color. Furthermore, both forms of the Eastern Comma Butterfly have a silvery comma spot in the center of their back wing.

The Eastern Comma Butterfly from Canada are quite different, and these average-sized butterflies have a wingspan, ranging from 37 mm to 56 mm. They have generally a dark orange-brown color body, with black color borders and different black color spots on their upper side. The summer form of the Eastern Comma Butterfly has approximately completely black color back wings above, habitually with a violet edge like the Question Mark. The underside in male Eastern Comma Butterfly is mottled in a variety of shades, but female ones have comparatively an even yellow-brown or grey-brown underside. The silver comma form mark has an inflamed club at both ends.

The dark comma forms are often perplexed with the dark form of the query mark, but the two forms can be differentiated readily by the form of the comma mark on the underside of the Butterfly. The light form is by far puzzled with the Satyr Comma, which typically occurs in the range of Eastern Comma butterflies of the west and the north. The Eastern Comma Butterfly can be differentiated by their upper side color, which is yellowish-brown in satyrus and orange brown in comma. Through the underside outline, which is inclined to be spotted in Eastern Comma Butterfly, but appears to be additionally streaked longitudinally in satyrus, and by the chain of light submarginal spots on the back wing upper side, which is inclined to be split and bounded by gloomy shading in Eastern Comma Butterfly, but are bigger, are inclined to run jointly into a light band in satyrus.

The host plants of the Eastern Comma butterfly include False Nettle, Hops, Wood Nettle, American elm and Nettle.

Diet

By no means, the Eastern Comma butterfly visits flowers, but rather, the butterfly feeds on rotting fruit, sap, minerals and salts from peddling, and manure.

Breeding

The female Eastern Comma butterflies lay their green color eggs singly or in heaps under the leaves and stems of the host plants. The thorny larva differs in color that ranges from light green to yellow to white color and to even black color. The single larva feeds on the leaves of the host plants at night. Grown-up larvae build daytime leaf refuges by dragging a single leaf jointly with silk. The cocoon is brown in color and it is enclosed with spines. Winter form Eastern Comma Butterfly overwinter, but some butterflies will also travel south for the winter.

Eastern Comma Butterfly are insects. A Eastern Comma 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 Eastern Comma 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 Eastern Comma Butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Eastern Comma 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 Eastern Comma 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.

Eastern Comma Butterfly can see yellow, green, and red. An adult Eastern Comma Butterfly average life span is from a week to a year
The top flight speed of a Eastern Comma Butterfly is 12 miles per hour and some moths can fly up to 25 miles per hour.
A Eastern Comma Butterfly is cold-blooded, which means the body temperature is not regulated on its own. A Eastern Comma Butterfly can't fly or eat if their body temperature is below 82 degrees fah (28 cel). Butterfly's 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 Butterfly has sense organ, on their feet or tarsi, for tasting
The estimate is between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly.

A Eastern Comma Butterfly has a small body, made up of three parts – the head, abdomen and thorax. A Eastern Comma Butterfly has two large eyes, which are made up of many small parts which are called "compound eyes".
A Eastern Comma Butterfly has two antenna's on the top of their heads, which they use to smell, hear and feel. A butterfly’s 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.

A Eastern Comma Butterfly has three pairs of legs and their feet have little claws that help them stand on flowers. The Eastern Comma Butterfly's wings are made up of hard tubes that are covered with a thin tissue. The Eastern Comma Butterfly's wings are covered with fine dusty like scales. A 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.