Peacock Butterfly

Facts about Peacock Butterfly, "Scientific name Peacock Butterfly Inachis io". The Peacock Butterfly is a variety of butterfly that belongs to the genus Aglais of the Nymphalidae family. The Peacock Butterfly are more common in temperate Asia, Europe and as far as the eastern parts of Japan. The Peacock Butterfly is the inhabitant in much of its collection, habitually wintering in trees or buildings. Consequently, it frequently appears pretty early during the spring season. The eye-spots of the Peacock butterfly serve as an anti-predator, and the butterfly is increasing its range. The Peacock Butterfly lives in forest, meadows, fields, parks, pastures and gardens, and in lowlands equal to 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) height. It is relatively a widespread butterfly, which is seen in several gardens and parks of Europe.

Features

The Peacock Butterfly is a multicolored butterfly, with a wingspan ranges from 1 3/4 to 2 1/16 (50 mm to 55 mm). The pedestal-color of the wings of the Peacock Butterfly is an oxidized red, and at every wingtip they bear a unique, blue, black and yellow color eyespot. The underside of the butterfly is a cryptically colored black or dark-brown.

The male European Peacock Butterfly shows territorial behavior, in several cases the territories are being chosen on the way of the female butterflies to the oviposition locations. The female peacock butterflies hibernate over the winter season earlier than laying their eggs in the early spring. The Peacock Butterfly are capable of laying a maximum of 400 eggs at a time in batches. The eggs are ridged and they are olive-green in color and they are laid on the undersides and the upper parts of nettle plant leaves and on hops. The eggs hatch after a week and the caterpillars of the Peacock Butterfly have a glossy black color body, with six lines of barbed spikes and a sequence of white color dots on every segment, and with a glossy black color head. The chrysalis can be brown, grey or green in color and can have a blackish touch. Usually, the Peacock caterpillars grow to a maximum length of 1 7/12 (42 mm).

Diet

The adult Peacock butterflies drink nectar from an extensive range of flowering plants, as well as buddleia, dandelions, willows, wild marjoram, hemp agrimony, danewort, and clover. The Peacock Butterfly also feed on rotten fruit and tree sap.

Behavior

The Peacock Butterfly uses a monandrous type mating system, which indicates that the Peacock Butterfly will mate with only one partner for a particular time period. This is because of their life cycle in which the female Peacock Butterfly is accessible only during an eclosion (the emergence of an insect from its pupal case, or the hatching of a larva from an egg) time, subsequent to overwintering. The Peacock Butterfly pair mates only once subsequent to overwintering, as it is extremely difficult to locate an amenable female butterfly following that period. If the range of the female butterflies is not defend-able by a male Peacock Butterfly, the males defend a single enviable area that female butterflies will get through, such as thick food regions, watering holes, or constructive nesting locations. The male Peacock Butterfly will then try to mate with the female butterfly as they are crossing. Holding an enviable territory boosts the male’s probability of locating a mate and so increases his reproductive achievement. The Peacock Butterfly shows perching behavior. The male peacock butterflies will rest on an object at a particular height where they can watch the passing flying objects.

Just like all other butterflies, the peacock butterfly can detect yellow, green, red, color."Scientific name for butterfly Lepidoptera". Peacock Butterfly are insects. A Peacock 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 Peacock Butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Peacock Butterfly will attach its eggs to leaves with a special glue.

When Peacock 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 Peacock 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.

Peacock 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 butterfly is 12 miles per hour and some moths can fly up to 25 miles per hour.
A Peacock Butterfly is cold-blooded, which means the body temperature is not regulated on its own. A Peacock Butterfly can't fly or eat if their body temperature is below 82 degrees fah (28 cel). Peacock 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 Peacock Butterfly has sense organ, on their feet or tarsi, for tasting
The estimate is between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly.

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