"CityU Web Hacker" - Butterfly

What is Butterfly?

Butterfly is an insect of the order Lepidoptera, and belongs to one of the superfamilies Hesperioidea (the skippers) or Papilionoidea(all other butterflies). Some authors have also suggested the inclusion of the superfamily Hedyloidea, the American butterfly moths. Butterfly is notable for their unusual life cycle with a larval caterpillar stage, an inert pupal stage and a spectacular metamorphosis into their familiar and colourful winged adult butterflies. The diverse patterns formed by butterflies' brightly coloured wings and their erratic-yet-graceful flight have made butterfly watching a popular hobby.
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How butterfly looks like?

Butterfly is beautiful, flying insects with large scaly wings. Like all insects, butterflies have six jointed legs, 3 body parts, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, and an exoskeleton. The three body parts of butterfly are the head, thorax (the chest), and abdomen (the tail end).The butterfly's body is covered by tiny sensory hairs. The four wings and the six legs of the butterfly are attached to the thorax. The thorax of butterfly contains the muscles that make the legs and wings move.
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Complete metamorphosis of Butterfly

Unlike many insects, butterflies do not experience a nymph period, but instead go through a pupal stage which lies between the larva and the butterfly adult stage (the imago). Butterfly is termed as holometabolous insect. All butterflies have "complete metamorphosis." The transformation of the frequently ugly or bizarre caterpillar into an elegant butterfly - is truly one of the regularly performed miracles of Nature. To grow into an adult butterfly, they go through 4 stages: egg, larva, pupa and butterfly adult. Each stage has a different goal - for instance, caterpillars need to eat a lot, and butterfly adults need to reproduce. Because the caterpillar and adult butterfly eats different kinds of food, this helps the butterfly to better survive. Depending on the species, the life cycle of a butterfly (one generation) may take anywhere from about one month to an entire year. It is a popular belief that butterflies have very short life spans. However butterflies in their adult butterfly stage usually can live nearly a year.

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