During the mating process, when their bodies are joined, the male passes sperm to the female. As the eggs later pass through the female's egg-laying tube, they are fertilized by the sperm. The male butterfly often dies soon after mating.
Approximately 3 weeks. Females lay eggs 5 to 7 days after emerging from the chrysalis. The eggs hatch after three days.
Female Butterflies
They mate only once in their lifetime, laying up to 100 eggs. Its common for her to lay single eggs or clusters.
The typical arrangement of internal reproductive organs in male butterflies includes two fused testes that give rise to a pair of vas deferens, which are secretory ducts, that lead to the duplex, which is a pair of sperm storage organs.
Butterflies. In some creatures, like butterflies, the split is visible over their entire bodies. Some Lycaeides butterflies display a rare dual condition called gynandromorphism that can cause male and female traits to be arranged either haphazardly or bilaterally with one side male and the other equally female.
Do male butterflies have balls? Rather than a blob of white gunk, it's a complex solid package called a spermatophore, which consists of a hard outer shell, soft nutritious innards, and a ball of sperm at the base. The male deposits this into a pouch within the female reproductive tract called the bursa copulatrix.
When they mate they remain together from one afternoon until early the next morning—often up to 16 hours! Females begin laying eggs immediately after their first mating, and both sexes can mate several times during their lives. Adults in summer generations live from two to five weeks.
Males have a small black spot on the top surface of the hindwing. Females do not. You can see the spot when the wings are open; sometimes it's faintly visible when the wings are closed, too.
I then noticed butterflies were mating in midair. One butterfly would do the flying, while the other would be hanging precariously below. This stunt was made possible by the male's “claspers.” These claspers work exactly as they sound: they grab hold of the female, making sure that they remain together.
After mating with a male, the female butterfly must go in search of a plant on which to lay her eggs. Because the caterpillars that will hatch from her eggs will be very particular about what they eat, she must be very particular in choosing a plant.
Males and females lock together at the ends of the abdomens, and butterflies may stay attached for anywhere from an hour up to twelve or more! In this way, males can make sure that they are the only ones who fertilize the female's eggs.
What happens inside a chrysalis or cocoon? First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out.
Hopefully the fall wasn't too hard or long, and if not, the pupa may still be perfectly viable. If the chrysalis is punctured or if liquid is coming out, it may not survive. Greeny greenies contend that if a pupa is not reattached, not suspended as it would normally be, it won't survive.
Butterflies are oviparous , meaning they lay eggs. Eggs from the female butterfly are fertilized by sperm from the male. The female butterfly stores the male's sperm in a bursa , or sac, until she is ready to lay eggs. Depending on the species, females lay eggs one at a time, in clusters, or in batches of hundreds.
Now they are adults, and wings open up a world of possibilities. They compete and flirt, dancing in the air, circling skyward in a butterfly ballet. When they do mate, they join at the abdomen, facing away from each other. How long they stay together varies widely from couple to couple.
A more scientific question that I am asked periodically is, "Does one kind of butterfly mate with other kinds of butterflies?" Or in other words, "Do butterflies hybridize?" The general answer to this question is "No!".
The sex ratio of the nectaring butterflies in this study was skewed toward males throughout, with only 28% of the total being female.
Colours are useless in the dark, so butterflies and moths that fly at night use acoustic and chemical signalling to reach out to others. Both males and females give off scent to communicate with each other, releasing specific pheromones to attract the right type of mate.
When all is well, you will see mating pairs of butterflies. When butterflies mate, a male and a female are attached to each other at the abdomen, both facing the away from each other. This can take half an hour to 8 hours.
Butterflies are all laying eggs and they never give birth. The female butterfly will mate with a male butterfly to fertilize the eggs. The female will then lay the eggs on plants or in trees before it dies. The eggs will hatch caterpillars that will eventually pupate into butterflies.
It is totally safe to breed sibling butterflies together for a couple of generations. The genetic diversity is great. Although continuing to breed siblings for quite a few generations in a row could lead to serious problems, a couple of generations is fine.
This Lexias pardalis butterfly is perfectly split down its middle -- with male coloring on the left side of its body and wings and female coloring on the right. It's a condition called gynandromorphism. It usually happens early in development, when cells are just beginning to split to form an embryo.