Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera

The order’s name comes from the tiny scales that cover a butterfly’s wing like dust; the colour depends on the scales. A butterfly has a spirally coiled proboscis with which it sucks nectar. The larva is a caterpillar: chewing mouthparts, 3 pairs of true legs on the thorax and 5 pairs of prolegs on the abdomen. The cabbage white lays eggs under leaves of cabbage-family plants, its caterpillars eat the leaves and harm crops, then pupate. The silkworm is the oldest domesticated insect, raised in China about 5000 years ago, and feeds only on mulberry leaves. The moth does not feed, cannot fly after domestication and dies after laying eggs. The caterpillar moults four times in 20–24 days and reaches 8–9 cm in the fifth instar; moulting periods are called “sleep”. The liquid from its silk glands hardens in air into a thread 1000–1500 m long, from which it spins a cocoon and pupates inside. Thread is reeled from cocoons in factories. Silk farming is an old branch in Uzbekistan, where scientists created productive silkworm breeds and mulberry varieties.