The Evolution of Butterflies

The story of butterfly evolution is incomplete; butterflies are inherently so delicate that their remains are very rarely preserved there’re therefore several gaps in our knowledge. Insects first made an appearance about 400 million years ago, having evolved from the same ancestral line as the spiders and centipedes. This was back in the Devonian period, in the Paleozoic era. Winged insects made an appearance soon after; somewhere around 50 million years later; during the Carboniferous period. Moths evolved before butterflies, but it is actually very difficult to say when. This is because they developed out of caddis-flies (Order Trichoptera), and there’s no single stage where they stopped being cadis-flies, and started being moths. Butterflies evolved about 40 million years later; during the Cretaceous period.

Finding a fossil butterfly is a very rare even less than 50 have been found to date, including those preserved in amber. The best fossil butterflies have been found at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in central Colorado, which is world renowned for the quality of its fossils. The beds there produce fossils that are in the order of 35 million years old. The oldest conclusive lepidopteran fossil found, however was in England at Charmouth. This was a moth called Archaeolepis mane, and is from the lower Jurassic, which makes it about 185 million years old.

The evolution of butterflies was directly linked to that of flowering plants. This is because of mutual interdependence; the butterflies need the flowers to feed on, and the plants need the butterflies to act as pollinators. This is achieved when butterflies travel between flowers to feed. As they do so, they also transfer pollen; this is sometimes so specific that only one species of plant can feed the butterfly, and conversely the butterfly may be the only species that can pollinate the plant. The consequence of this is that if one becomes extinct, so does the other. 

Planning and Planting a Herb Garden

Every good garden design book advises would be designer gardener to first take your squared paper and in fact, it is a good idea to draw the plan to scale. The size of the beds is much more easily appreciated, the spaces between them can be better compared to the dimensions of the beds, and the proportions of the various plants can be correctly assessed, so that mistakes in juxtaposition can be adjusted. Better still, if you’re anything of an artist, is then to transpose your scale plant to ta three-dimensional drawing, preferably colored, showing it as it will be in three or four years, time when the perennial plants are mature. 

Steps in Designing 

·        1. Assess your soil:

Is it well-drained (sandy, shingly, gravelly, and chalky?

Does it hold water and feel sticky when sticky when wet, cracking badly when dry (predominantly clay or silt?

Is it dark-colored, spongy when wet and dusty when dry (Peat)?

How does it react to a pH test (acid or alkaline)?

Does it contain organic matter (material floating on the surface of a solution of Soil?

·        2. Assess Your Site

Which parts are sunny-shady?

Does it get wind, if so, where from (north, South, east or west)?

Is it likely to retain frost and collect snow in winter?

Is it sheltered by walls/fences/hedges?

Is the garden close to the sea?

What is average winter and summer rainfall?

Where does the water lie the longs?

·        3. In the light of answers to these questions, select your herbs. Whatever choice of herb you settle on, before you start to mark the places for them on your paper plan, make sure you know what their final size will be when they are mature. The adult height and width are important facts armed with which you can plant without crowding or spacing; if the soil is a well worked heavy one, allow for extra growth. The converse is seldom true, since several herbs grow naturally in poor dry soils.

·        4. Make a rough diagram of your design and determine whether it is appropriate to the size of the site, e.g. a herb border on the grand scale will not be successful in an area 3 x 3 (10 x 10ft); in other words the proportions of the design should be such that theirs is room to make the most of them in the area concerned.

·        5. Select your plants according to your needs and the dictates of the soil and site as determined from your assessment. 

·       

6. Enter their name on the diagram in your preferred arrangement, taking into account height as well as spread, whether they’re evergreen, perennial, annual, flowering or non-flowering. At this stage it can help to trace the design on the site in outline with the help of chalk rope, string, or the garden hose, and to use canes stuck in the soil to give an indication of the final height of plants.

·        7. Measure the area exactly and scale it down for transfer to squared paper a large scale would be 1.2 cm (1/2 in) per 30 cm (12 in), but if you want to mark in all the plants in all the beds, it’d have to be of the order of 5 cm/30cm (2 in/12 in).

·        8. Mark in the beds and borders on it to the dimensions required, in the required positions. 

·        9. Write in the names of the plants where they fit in to the pattern and draw a circle round them to indicate the extent of their final spread. 

·        10. Decide on the numbers of plants and the seeds required and order accordingly, unless you’re planning to plant up from different sources. The diagram above is an herb garden containing a collection of herbs grown in Britain and on the continent in mediaeval times; they’ve a variety of uses, and some of them fulfill several functions. 

Notes:

The tall plants have been put at the back of the beds or in the center plants which are low-growing have been put near the edges, and naturally dwarf shrubs have been used for the edging, which gives the beds the necessary precision and unites the pattern. The pattern is further emphasized by repetition of plantings.    Herbs with evergreen leaves continue to provide a structural pattern in winter and cover the ground to some extent, though in a herb garden it is never possible to have a permanent blanket of vegetation if you wish to grow the annual herbs such as summer savory, coriander or sweet marjoram. Sun loving herbs are placed in   the center aromatic plants are distributed throughout the pattern to provide aromas and fragrances. A good deal of use is made of leaf quality, though with showy flowers e.g. tansy, marigold, feverfew, chives, rue, borage, clary and mustard. Herbs which need cooler soil, depth and permanent moisture should be planted in a position likely to provide this, so a site near the boundary to the south provides shade and is less likely to dry out. The mint should have a place where it can be easily chopped out before it runs amok amongst its neighbor’s. Feverfew will seed itself enthusiastically, so it will borage, and parsley, where it is happy. 

Herbs grown by division

Balm, Lemon, Bergamot, Burnet, Salad, Catmint, Chamomile, Comfrey, Costmary, Fennel, Feverfew, Madder, Marshmallow, Nettle, (Runners), Orris Root, Pennyroyal, Pink, Sorrel, Tansy, Tarragon, Thyme, Valerian, Vervain, Yarrow, 

Mount Bromo, is an active volcano and part of the Tengger massif, in East Java, Indonesia. At 2,329 metres it is not the highest peak of the massif, but is the most well known.

Mount Bromo, is an active volcano and part of the Tengger massif, in East Java, Indonesia. At 2,329 metres it is not the highest peak of the massif, but is the most well known.

Yellow-Bibbled Lory; A Beautiful Parrot Endemic to the Solomon Islands

The yellow-bibbed lory (Lorius chlorocercus) is a monotypic species of parrot in the Psittaculidae family. This beautiful parrot is endemic to the Solomon Islands. The yellow-bibbed lory is about 11 in, (28 cm) long. It is mostly red with black on top of head and green wings. It has a yellow transverse band on upper chest and a crescent-shaped black patch on each side of neck. It has vibrant blue-green thighs and dark-grey legs. It has an orange-red beak, dark-grey eyerings, and orange irises. Under its wings the bird has blue feathers. Currently there’re only two breeding pairs in the United States. However, they are very sweet, kind birds, and as they’re a type of parrot, they’ve a relatively large vocabulary for an animal. 

The striking Yellow-bibbed Lory natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. The parrot calls are described as shrieking and harsh, while feeding emits soft chattering. The bird is aptitude is Harder to breed than some other lorikeets, can be good as a pet depending on the bird. The bird likes to eat pollen, nectar, fruits, small seeds and caterpillars, apples, pears, grapes, tangelos, kiwifruit, sultanas, banana, watermelon (no avocado), fresh veggies (frozen bags of mixed veggies and frozen corn are ideal recorded. Numerous bird species in the Solomon Islands are vulnerable just due to their small natural ranges and forest clearing for agriculture is an ongoing threat. 

The bird is listed on CITES II and is well considered a Birdlife International "restricted-range" species, which means that, while the species is abundant in numbers, the range of the species is very limited and could be simply threatened. The Yellow-bibbed Lory is a gorgeously bright-red parrot with a black forehead and yellow band on the chest. These Lories can be found in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands where they live in tropical lowland forests. Yellow bibs can make good pets. Cheeky, intelligent, loving and playful it’s like having four seasons in one day having a bib as a pet.

Yellow bibs are habitually very active you’d quite easily be able to notice if something was wrong.  If there’re general level of hygiene is maintained with feeders, cages and aviaries normally you will encounter very few problems. Worm your lorry on a regular basis every 6 months. This is for pets and aviary birds. It’d be highly suggest yellow bibs would be more of a bird to try to keep if you are a bird keeper with some experience in keeping Lories or lorikeets in the past. If you’re a first timer think about it and get some advice first!

Butterfly Classification How They’re Named

Most butterflies have an English name and all have a Latin one, their scientific label which is derived from the “Binomial” system which was first used by Carl Linnaeus (Properly written Carl Von Linne) in 1753, in his book Species Plantarum. This was the starting point for scientific nomenclature for botanists, and the same happened for zoologists when Linnaeus published the tenth edition of Systema Naturae in 1758. What made him unique amongst scientists of his time was that he was a very systematic worker being very through and orderly. Can you imagine the mess we would be in today if Linnaeus had tried to impose a naming system on over a million different animal species without it being rigorous and methodical?

The Latin name has at least two parts and may well have extra names tacked on the end. Sometimes they translate into meaningful phrase especially those named back in Linnaeus’s time. For instance, the Small Blue is well known scientifically as Cupido minimus, which translates as “little Cupid”. This is because it is a beautiful little insect, deserving of such a name  this is typical of the period when scientists liked to put a little romance into their work in this case it was described for science in 1775 by Fuessly. 

When the species in question has various subspecies an addition is made to the name, for instance when the English form of the Old world Swallowtail, Latin name Papilio machaon, is considered, it has the word britannicus added, so it becomes Papilio machaon Britannicus. Notice also that the first letter of the Latin name is spelled with a capital. This is the generic name, whereas the first letter of the second the specific name and any others are lower case. 

You will often also see a name and possibly a date at the end of the Latin name such as “Linnaeus, 1758” this is the Descriptor the person who first described the species for science, and the date is when this information was first published. However, if the name and date are placed in parentheses, it means that the species has been moved from genus where it was first placed into another one. This may all sound a bit complicated, but it’s scientific convention it also helps to clarify the situation if someone else mistakenly uses the same Latin name for a different species. 

One of the many confusing aspects of naming any plant or animal is that as we discover more and more about which species are related to which, we have to reclassify them that is, we have to take them out of the place where we formerly thought they belonged in the “giant family tree of life,” and put them in what we hope is the right place. This means that we have to change their Latin name. To make matters even more confusing a single species may have many different common names, even in the same country. For instance the Peacock butterfly formerly had the scientific name Vanessa io. This then became Nymphalis io, and then Inachis io. But the Peacock butterfly or Europe is a very different species from that called the Peacock in the United States.

The Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world until the 1960s, Shrinking lake, central Asia

The Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world until the 1960s, when the Soviet Union diverted water from the rivers that fed the lake so cotton and other crops could be grown in the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The black outline shows the approximate coastline of the lake in 1960. By the time of the 2000 image, the Northern Aral Sea had separated from the Southern Aral Sea, which itself had split into eastern and western lobes. A dam built in 2005 helped the northern sea recover much of its water level at the expense of the southern sea. Dry conditions in 2014 caused the southern sea’s eastern lobe to dry up completely for the first time in modern times. The loss of the moderating influence of such a large body of water has made the region’s winters colder and summers hotter and drier.

Psychotria elata

This gorgeous pair of red, luscious lips belongs to a plant known as Psychotria elata, a tropical tree found mainly in the rain forests of Central and South American countries. Affectionately, Psychotria elata is called Hooker’s Lips or the Hot Lips Plants. The plant has evolved into its current shape to attract pollinators including hummingbirds and butterflies. This specimen was blooming at the botanical gardens here in tropical Queensland Australia.