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What we usually know as mariposa it is but the adult state (imago) of an order of insects known as lepidoptera, a name made up of the combination of the Greek words lepis (scale) and pteron (wing).
These animals, following bees, are the most numerous and important pollinators in nature. With their nomadic and erratic journeys, while tireless, they appear to us as harbingers of dreams and hopes.
It is estimated that there are some 165,000 species of butterflies on the entire planet, with an average weight between 0.005 and 0.006 grams, and a size that ranges between three millimeters, for the smallest specimens, and thirty centimeters, for the largest. (Ornithoptera alexandrae).
The herald of spring
Butterflies usually have a very short life, being an exception that confirms the rule the limonera (Gonopterys cleopatra). It is an elegant, aristocratic lepidopteran with disconcerting movements, it is large – between 5 and 6 cm in wingspan – and brightly colored. Its habitat is in Europe, Asia and North Africa.
The caterpillar phase of lemon trees is green or yellowish, which is an excellent camouflage to go unnoticed in its food plants, and its body is elongated or cylindrical, with a small head without thorns. They feed mainly on the aladierno (Rhammus alaternus) and the arraclán (Fragula alnus).
The chrysalis is made on the plant itself, remaining fixed with silk threads, the eggs hatch in July and the adults can live until May of the following year. Once reached the adult stage or imago, it is one of the longest-lived species of all butterflies.
In summer their presence is hardly noticeable, they usually remain at rest during the summer, making short flights in the autumn months in search of a place where they can winter until the arrival of spring.
Lemon trees are very early and some start to fly in late February or early March. The reason they lift their wings so quickly is that it gives them a huge evolutionary advantage, since songbirds that feed on insects do not return from their wintering inns until mid-April. These butterflies, being brightly colored, would be a very appetizing and easy prey for these birds.
Masters of disguise
Gonopterys cleopatra belongs to the Pieridae family, which has more than a thousand species throughout the world, and of which fifty inhabit Europe. In our peninsula, the existence of at least twenty-four species has been verified.
The lemon butterfly presents a clear sexual dimorphism that allows the aware observer to differentiate them in a simple way. The obverse of the wings of the male specimens is green, streaked with yellowish tones and with an orange spot in the cell of both wings, which does not appear in their female counterparts. Another distinctive feature that helps their differentiation is that females tend to have a much paler greenish coloration.
Female lemon butterflies are quite similar to cabbage butterflies, a poisonous lepidopteran that birds tend to respect because it contains toxic glucosinolates. With this mimicry, the lemon tree warns its possible predators that they are not “suitable for consumption”.
But what regarding the males? Are they not protected? It is very possible that yes, what to our eyes is shown to us of different chromaticism, to birds, thanks to their extraordinary sensitivity to color and their capture of ultraviolet light, they seem to have a similar greenish hue. In other words, it would be more difficult for birds than us to distinguish between males and females, and therefore differentiate them from the dreaded cabbage butterflies.
Pedro Gargantilla is an internist at the Hospital de El Escorial (Madrid) and the author of several popular books.
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