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Stunning photos of 800+ butterflies & moths worldwide.
Comprehensive guide to anatomy, ecology, evolution, habitats,
lifecycle, taxonomy, photography.
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Welcome to
learnaboutbutterflies.com ! |
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learnaboutbutterflies.com
is the most complete and authoritative on-line resource dealing
with Lepidoptera worldwide. It aims to promote the conservation of
butterflies, moths and their habitats; to illustrate and describe
a large and representative selection of the world's species, and
to provide detailed, accurate information about all aspects of
their lives. |
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website updated Sunday 7th March 2010 |
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Zaretis itys,
Rio Madre de Dios, Peru. read
about this species
here
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Worldwide, 50,000 square miles of rainforest is deforested
every year.
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Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of
global carbon emissions.
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Every second a slice of rainforest the size of a
football field is destroyed.
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Every day 86,400 football fields of rainforest are
destroyed.
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Every year 31 million football fields of
rainforest are destroyed.
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Although they cover less than 2 percent of the
Earth's surface area, rainforests are home to over
50 percent of the world's plant and animal life.
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A typical 5 square
mile area of Amazon rainforest supports 1,500
flowering plants, 750 species of tree, 450 species
of bird, and over 500 species of butterfly. But
soon it will all be gone.
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More than
10,000 square miles of the Amazon
rainforest is deliberately burnt down every year to make way for cattle pastures. These
nutrient-poor
pastures are only capable of supporting very low
densities of cattle. Every dry season the pastures are set on
fire to promote new grass growth and to destroy cattle parasites.
The fires
rage uncontrolled, setting alight further areas of forest.
Deforested areas are much hotter and drier than the rainforests
- consequently the average temperature of the entire Amazonian
region rises and the humidity falls even more dramatically. This
causes major changes in the vegetation structure of the
remaining areas of rainforest, leading to reduced biodiversity
even in protected areas.
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The information presented on
this website is based on 40 years of extensive personal observation
of butterflies in their habitats by Adrian Hoskins, supplemented by data
collated from reference books, and from professional
biologists, taxonomists and ecologists. In order to make the
articles more readable I have dispensed with source
references on the individual pages, but these include
such eminent international authorities as Bernard
d'Abrera, Andrew Neild, Robert Robbins,
Jorge Bizzaro,
Curtis Callaghan, Gerardo Lamas, Jason Hall,
Keith
Willmott, Maurizio Bollino, Pat Haynes,
Stéphane Attal,
Ronald Brabant, Martin Honey, Kevin Tuck
and Bernard Hermíer to whom I express my
sincere gratitude.
I also pay tribute to
Matthew Oates and Jeremy Thomas whose knowledge of the
ecology of British butterflies first inspired me to take a deeper
interest in the subject. Last but by no means least, I would
like to thank my lepidopterist friends, particularly Steve
Meredith, Andrew Neild,
Tony Hoare, Peter Bruce-Jones, Colin Baker, Neil Hulme and the late Doris Ashby for the many shared
pleasures on our various field trips and expeditions. |
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learnaboutbutterflies
would like to express our
thanks to
Bernard &
Lucilla d'Abrera for their
generous donation of 11 volumes of "Butterflies
of the World", an indispensable series of immense value as
a tool for the identification of species photographed for this
website.
I would
also like to express my thanks to Colin Baker for his
generous
donation of computer software, and to Tony Hoare who
kindly donated a copy of Willmott's "The Genus
Adelpha" to the learnaboutbutterflies library. Tony
has also generously donated a Nikon LS2000 film scanner which
when time permits should
enable me to incorporate many images from my library of 10,000
colour slides of European, African, Asian and South American
butterflies.
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Please support learnaboutbutterflies by hosting
your own website with
Just Host.
Purchasing a web-hosting package via the
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below will automatically transmit the learnaboutbutterflies referral
code and earn us a small donation.
All
photographs, text & website design are the property of Adrian
Hoskins unless otherwise stated, and are protected by Copyright.
Photographs or text must not be published elsewhere in part or in
whole without prior written
consent of Adrian Hoskins. |
