The dancer of nature - butterfly

When you have just bid farewell to the cold winter and step out of the threshold to enjoy the green grass, "butterflies suddenly fill the grass" (Li Bai's "Mountain People Encourage Wine"), and the breath and beauty of spring are everywhere. In the charming spring light, you can walk in the woods and mountains and watch "swarms of mountain butterflies swarming around Hui Hui" ("Deng Liu Guest House" written by Qian Qi of the Tang Dynasty); stay by the stream and watch the "flying on the majestic island" "Yellow butterfly" ("Farewell to Doctor Wei" by Zhang Zhang of the Tang Dynasty). Lingering in nature, recalling the sentiment of "birds singing in the March rain, butterflies dancing in the wind of hundreds of flowers" ("Send a Friend in Anlu" by Yaohe of the Tang Dynasty). At this time and this scene, you may feel the brightness of spring, the resurrection of all things, the blooming of flowers, and sincerely praise the butterfly, the spirit of beauty. The beauty of butterflies makes people love it like crazy.

Humans have been praising butterflies since ancient times, and they seem to be consistent at home and abroad; poets and poets have written countless popular poems about them; painters often incorporate them into evocative music; even ordinary people can't help but feel excited when they see them. They used vulgar words to express their feelings. Therefore, this insect, known as the "Dancing Queen of Nature", can be said to be closely related to human life.

Butterflies have been favored by literati since ancient times, and they are often mentioned in poems and lyrics. Butterflies first appeared in literary works, probably in the pre-Qin prose masterpiece "Zhuangzi". Zhuang Zhou's Mengdie is one of the famous ones. The article tells that Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he turned into a butterfly, "a vivid butterfly" and "I don't know Zhou Ye". When he woke up, he was surprised to see that he was Zhuang Zhou. Therefore, he was confused, not knowing whether Zhuang Zhou dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or whether the butterfly dreamed of becoming Zhuang Zhou. This fable is to illustrate that the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou, the things and myself, are originally one and there is no difference, so there is no need to investigate. Since then, for more than two thousand years, Zhuang Zhou's dream of butterflies has become an important theme for literati and poets to borrow objects to express their aspirations, and butterfly dreams have become synonymous with dreams. The poem "Jin Se" written by Li Shangyin of the Tang Dynasty is full of remembrance of deceased friends and expresses the feelings of joy and sorrow. The poem quotes the allusion of Zhuang Zhou dreaming of butterflies. The first sentence "Zhuang Sheng dreamed of butterflies at dawn" is a metaphor for the unity of things, while the second sentence " "Wang Di's spring heart entrusts the cuckoo" as a metaphor for separation. There is a poem in Tang Zuyong's "Gift to the Miao Hairyuanwai" that says "the silk-long butterfly flies", which refers to the graceful and graceful ribbon butterfly with a long and slender tail protrusion. Butterflies are loved by people because of their bright colors. There are many art works with butterflies as the theme in the past dynasties. For example, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the pattern composed of butterflies and melons represented auspiciousness. The combination of butterflies and flowers made the picture vivid and natural, and the paired butterflies represented the symbol of love. These are adopted by folk customs and have been passed down ever since. At the end of the Shaoxing opera "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai", the hero and heroine transform into a pair of butterflies as a symbol of loyal love. The song "Butterfly Lovers", written based on the tragic love story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, has touched countless people around the world. Among them, the melody of the "Butterfly" section describes the hero and heroine turning into butterflies flying together. "Butterfly Lovers" has become a precious spiritual wealth of our people. There are even more butterfly patterns that can be seen in fabrics, embroidery, stamps and crafts. Artists use the beautiful and colorful butterfly wings to collage them into various art paintings or make large-scale murals, which have high artistic and ornamental value. This kind of murals was once popular in Europe in the 19th century. Some people also use egg whites to paste scales and patterns on walls or cloth to create collage paintings.

The butterfly ecological garden keeps live butterflies in net rooms or sheds in the butterfly ecological garden. The wonderful garden landscape of fragrant flowers and dancing butterflies in the shed can be viewed by visitors; for example, the "Insect Ecological Garden" is built in the Tama Zoo in Ueno City, Japan. , looks like a silk butterfly spreading its wings and is about to fly. Inside, there are nearly a thousand colorful and dancing butterflies of more than a dozen species for visitors to watch and enjoy. The beauty of the situation is intoxicating.

Butterflies are an important type of pollinating insects. In a sense, butterflies are more effective pollinators than some bees because butterflies usually only feed on nectar, and the pollen carried in various parts of their bodies can be used for effective pollination, while bees The pollen in the pollen basket is ineffective for the plant. Unfortunately, people are accustomed to believe that bees have specialized pollen baskets and are therefore the most effective pollinating insects, thus neglecting the study of butterfly pollination and its co-evolution with flowers, and the data are very scarce (REDDI&BAI, 1984). Although Grant had noticed this void as early as 1949, the situation had not changed much. There are some papers abroad that describe and discuss the groups of pollinating butterflies (such as spotted butterflies, nymphals, swallowtail butterflies, gray butterflies, nemesis butterflies, etc.), the mechanism of butterflies looking for nectar (such as color, flower shape, smell, etc.) and certain plants ( Study on the types of pollen used by butterflies on (such as tongue orchid, horse chestnut, milkweed, etc.). It is reported that the nectar secreted by horse chestnut is poisonous to bees and can only be pollinated by butterflies; the orchid is also mainly pollinated by butterflies. However, these studies are too limited to evaluate the pollination effect of butterflies and to explore the co-evolution between butterflies and their pollinating plants. There have been no domestic reports in this regard.

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