Orange migrant facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Orange migrant |
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The Catopsilia scylla, also known as the orange migrant or orange emigrant, is a beautiful type of butterfly. It lives in warm places like Southeast Asia and Australasia. The young butterflies, called larvae or caterpillars, mostly eat plants from the Cassia and Senna families.
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What Does the Orange Emigrant Look Like?
Adult orange emigrant butterflies are about 60 to 65 millimeters long. That's about the length of a small paperclip!
Male butterflies have white front wings with black edges. Their back wings are a bright yellow, like the color cadmium yellow. They usually have black spots along the edges of their back wings.
Female butterflies look similar to males. But they have extra black spots on their front wings. These spots often join together to make a dark ring.
Where Does the Orange Emigrant Live?
The orange emigrant butterfly can be found in many places. It lives across a wide area in Southeast Asia and Australasia.
You can find them in countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. They also live along the Malay Peninsula, across islands like Java and Sumatra. You can even see them in northern Australia. Recently, they were also found in Sri Lanka.
What Do Orange Emigrant Caterpillars Eat?
In Australia, the caterpillars of the orange emigrant butterfly eat different types of Senna plants. Some of these include S. didymobotrya, S. leptoclada, and S. surattensis.
In Singapore, the caterpillars enjoy eating Senna obtusifolia, Cassia fistula, and especially Senna pallida plants. These plants are very important for the young butterflies to grow.
Life Cycle of the Orange Emigrant
The life of an orange emigrant butterfly starts as a tiny egg. The eggs are milky white and shaped like a spindle. They are usually laid one by one on a leaf of a host plant.
The eggs hatch in about 1.5 to 2 days. Out comes a small caterpillar! These caterpillars grow through five stages, called instars. This growing period takes about 11 to 13 days. By the end, the caterpillar can be about 40 millimeters long.
The caterpillars are green and smooth. They have a round head. As they grow, they get a line of black dots and a white line along their sides.
After the caterpillar stage, it turns into a pupa. The pupa is about 26 millimeters long. It attaches itself to the host plant in an upright position. After about seven days, the adult butterfly comes out of the pupa. Then, the whole life cycle can start again!
Naming the Orange Emigrant Butterfly
The orange emigrant butterfly was first described by a famous scientist named Carl Linnaeus. He called it Papilio scylla in his book Centuria Insectorum in 1763.
In Australia, a specific type of this butterfly, called C. s. etesia, is known as the orange migrant. In other places, the whole species is called the orange emigrant. There are also other types of this butterfly, like C. s. praerubida and C. s. sidra.
