Ranger Hamza's Eco Quest Series 2 12 Butterflies and Moths

[PhilBJohnson]

"Ranger Hamza and the Ramblers go on an eco quest to find out about butterflies and moths." 14 minutes 11 Dec 2023
Was available to view on BBC iPlayer

An interesting educational opportunity for Butterfly boys and Girls, apparently, below the age of 12.
Simple Principles about Butterflies and Moths:
1. An effort was repeatedly made to say that Butterflies and Moths were part of a food chain, with a picture of a "Yellow chested blue cap" hopping after a butterfly or moth
I thought that Butterfly Conservation must help more here in a consultation process to help develop some very simple principles for children and older children to learn.

Some simple food chain differences that are generally true, but not necessarily specifically true
Hopefully the following is some of my help, to help others communicate differences to children:
1. Butterflies used energy from the sun to fly which meant that they generally had, relatively big wings compared with their bodies. A significance of that, was when individuals were chased, average energy expended by a bird in pursuit, often made it, not worth the energy reward in catching one to eat. That allowed them more freedom as adults, to oviposit eggs in time for a future generation to thrive later.
2. Immature stages of butterflies were generally most vulnerable in a predatory food chain, when a caterpillars body was at it's largest, just before pupation. Their bodies then, might have been about as big as a butterfly's (or even bigger) but possibly easier to catch by a bird.
In facts, it was thought, a high percentage of butterfly life cycles were eaten (predation) in penultimate or final "instars" of larval stages and a high percentage of parasitism took place in mid larval development, allowing larvae hosts to carry on growing to feed the parasite or parasites within.

#Garden protection for immature stages of butterfly life cycles (immature meaning, before butterflies were ready to mate)

3. Moths were generally nocturnal and because they generally did not use direct energy from the sun for flight, their bodies were often relatively large compared with their wing size, for energy storage in cooler night time flight temperatures. They sometimes became prey for very specialised hunters, like bats. Many birds, might not have seen moths at night, when the birds were "asleep" (what I meant by that, was roosting).

I thought that Ranger Hamza might have needed help with this, as his previous specialised interests appeared to be with birds of prey and animals near the top of food chains.
Kind regards,