Malachite Butterfly

Facts about Malachite Butterfly, "Scientific name for Malachite Butterfly's is Siproeta stelenes" Malachite Butterfly is a neo-tropical type of brush-footed butterfly that comes from the genus Siproeta of the Nymphalidae family. The Malachite Butterfly attains it name due to its bright green color wings that resemble the color of the malachite mineral. The Malachite Butterfly can be seen all through Central and the northern parts of South America, where it is one among the most widespread butterfly varieties. Malachite Butterfly range extends as far as the northern parts of South Texas and the Florida tip, to Cuba, and the southern parts of Brazil. The Malachite Butterfly usually live in citrus, mango and avocado orchards and in semi-deciduous or subtropical evergreen woodlands. The outstanding Malachite Butterfly employs its unbelievable complexion, big size, and confident, stylish flight to attract any butterfly lover.

Features

The Malachite Butterfly has a big size wing, usually with a wingspan that ranges from 3.3 inches to 3.9 inches (8.3 cm to 9.9 cm). These wings are yellow-green or brilliant green and black color on the upper sides, highlighted with black color lines, ovals, and quadrangles in standard patterns. The underside of their wings has the similar black lines and quadrangles, but emphasized with the orange color, and they are olive green and light brown in color. The hind wing underside of the butterfly has smudged black color marks within the orange color marginal band. The summer form butterfly is smaller and includes silver markings as a substitute of black color smudges.

Opening as horned, spiky black color caterpillars with red color markings, it becomes an emerald green chrysalis marked with pink color and finally evolves into an eye-catching adult butterfly. The chrysalis integrates well with the leaves of their host plant.

Sexual dimorphism is well-defined in Malachite Butterfly varieties that the bigger and the light colored female butterflies are sometimes erroneously placed in dissimilar subspecies than the male butterflies. These butterflies are magnificent, powerful fliers, and the green color of their wings shines and excels while it catches the sun.

Diet

The adult Malachite Butterfly feeds on rotting fruit, flower nectar, bat dung and dead animals. The caterpillars feed on the leaves of their host plant.

Breeding

Usually, the Malachite Butterfly has two to three broods in the summer season and one brood of their winter form overwinters. The male Malachite Butterfly perches on shrubs in an orchard or forest openings and occasionally, they will patrol for female Malachite Butterfly by means of a sluggish, hovering flight. Adult Malachite Butterfly roost jointly beneath the leaves of low flowering shrubs. The female Malachite Butterfly lays her green color eggs singly on the fresh leaves of the Green Shrimp Plant, which is a widespread weed in Southeastern parts of Florida, and on the leaves of other plants that belong to the Acanthaceae family, particularly Ruellia, where the caterpillars munch and rest underneath. The larvae of the Malachite Butterfly are insatiable feeders and they have a horned, thorny black color body with red color markings. The caterpillar of the Malachite Butterfly grows quickly and is extremely durable. A green color Malachite Butterfly will come out to spread its wings and they habitually rest upside down below the leaves. Malachite Butterfly are insects. A Malachite 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 Malachite 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 Malachite Butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Malachite 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 Malachite 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.

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

A Malachite Butterfly has a small body, made up of three parts – the head, abdomen and thorax. A Malachite Butterfly has two large eyes, which are made up of many small parts which are called "compound eyes".
A Malachite Butterfly has two antenna's on the top of their heads, which they use to smell, hear and feel. A Malachite 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 Malachite Butterfly has three pairs of legs and their feet have little claws that help them stand on flowers. The Malachite Butterfly's wings are made up of hard tubes that are covered with a thin tissue. The Malachite Butterfly's wings are covered with fine dusty like scales. A Malachite 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.