Noa's Journal Entry

I chose to write my journal on the Papilio glaucus, or Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a species of butterfly native to eastern North America, where it is common in many different habitats. It is a part of the Animalia kingdom, Arthropoda phylum, Insecta class, Lepidoptera order, Papilionidae family, Papilio genus, and P. glaucus species.
Young caterpillars are born brown and white, but later turn bright green and have two black, yellow, and blue false eyespots on the thorax above and behind their true eyes. A unique adaptation of this butterfly is that as a caterpillar, it puts on a display mimicking a snake with glaring eyes when threatened and scares off predators. Additionally, if touched or pecked by a lizard, bird, or human, they turn out a set of bright orange glands from the neck region, producing a foul-smelling blend of defensive acid secretions that they wipe onto the animal threatening them.
Given that insects are known to be the most diverse group of animals, representing over half of all known living organisms, it is slightly difficult to distinguish what it is that they might all have in common, yet one trait that these insects all share (and most insects altogether) is their small size. Hundreds of millions of years ago, giant insects were relatively common on the planet (for example, M. permiana was a species related to the modern-day dragonfly that researchers in 1937 described to have a wingspan of over 0.6 meters), yet today the worlds largest insect, which is sadly heavily endangered, weighs only up to 2.5 ounces. The size of insects has adapted due to the changing of the atmosphere; insects do not have lungs and rely on air flow through the spiracles on their body to bring oxygen directly to their tissues. The air on Earth contained 31-35% oxygen during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, as opposed to the 21% today. The evolution of birds is another factor affecting the adaptations of insects, as the birds brought predation and competition to those prehistoric insects, affecting their size over time.

Posted on September 22, 2020 04:49 AM by noamor