Children’s Land is a space for creative activity of the village youth around Sadhana Forest, giving them the motivation to research deeply and elaborate interesting projects. 

Last week, Manu, a 17 years old boy from the village of Morattandi, designed a plan for a butterfly garden full of beautiful ideas.   Here we post his investigation about the butterflys that he wrote and shared with his friends in Sadhana Forest Children’s Land:

“Buttefly is a thing of beauty!!

Did you know that the taste sensors of a butterfly are located in its feet?This really means that by standing on their food they can taste it. With six feet and a body weighy of two rose petals, butterflies can actually fly many, many miles!! The wings of butterflies and moths are transparent. 

The shimmering scales, which overlap like tiles on a roof, give the wings the many shades that we can see. 

Both butterflies and moths belong to a genre called lepidoptera and are the second largest group pollinators, next to bees. 

Creatures that smell withg their antennae and breathe through openings in their abdomen called “spiracles”, butterflies have a long kind of strow like a structure called a proboscis with which they drink nectar from flowers. When they not use the proboscis is curled up rather like a garden rose. Ranging in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches, butterflies can’t hear, but they can feel vibrations and see the colours red, green and yellow.

Butterflies have their roots in a caterpillar which sheds its skin to revel a pupa. This in turn hardens to form a chorysalis in which the butterfly takes shape. It is a fascinating process and if you do come across a caterpillar you could see it for your self! Sadly the life span o both butterflies and moths in very short. Some creatures simply mate, reproduce and die. But there are others like the Asian Vaspire that can pierce the skin of animals with their strong and needle, like probosis and drink their blood! 

Since butterflies are cold blooded it is necessary for them to warm up their flight muscles in the sun. And when sufficiently warmed, these delicate creatures can attain flight speeds of up to 50 km/h.” 

Osher, a 9 years old girl from Sadhana Forest, investigated which are the plants that the butterflies eat, to pollinate, to make a cocoon, etc. She made a drawing of a colourful design with spiral shape and laminated it to share this precious information with other kids.

Come!! Come!! The flowers are blooming!!