Unseen Passage for Class 4 - Passage 18

Passage - The butterfly is an insect. Butterflies are noted for their wings. They are often colourful and have fascinated many. Butterflies have wings like birds but bird wings consist of feathers. If you examine the butterfly wings closely, you can see that they are made of tiny overlapping scales.

Butterflies have an interesting life cycle. They start as eggs. When they are hatched, they are what we call caterpillars. They eat a lot and grow rapidly. This is the larval stage for the caterpillar. The caterpillars then move into a cocoon, becoming what we call a chrysalis. At this stage, the pupal stage, it stops feeding. When the insect comes out of the cocoon, we call it a butterfly. This is the adult stage for the butterfly. These clear stages of changing on the way to adulthood are called metamorphosis. Many other animals go through metamorphosis. However, the butterfly's changes are most dramatic.

Butterflies can be found almost all over the world. There may be as many as twenty thousand different species of butterflies. Butterflies usually eat flower nectar and help to pollinate the flowers. Because of this, they are important to the life cycle of many flowers. Butterflies also need minerals, which they usually get from water found in dirt and sand.

They reach their adult stage in the summer. Some butterflies migrate. Every autumn, a magical event takes place. The Monarch butterflies migrate from Canada or the United States to Mexico. They fly thousands of kilometers to their destination to escape from the cold.