|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Purple Emperor
Apatura iris
|
Purple Sapphire
Heliophorus epicles
|
Peacock
Inachis io
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Rajah Brooke's Birdwing
Trogonoptera brookiana
|
Glittering Sapphire
Lasaia agesilas
|
BD
butterfly
Callicore cynosura
|
|
Welcome to
learnaboutbutterflies.com ! |
|
"promoting the
conservation of butterflies and their habitats throughout the world" |
|
"entertaining and educating butterfly enthusiasts at every level" |
|
website updated Friday 3rd July 2009 |
|
Worldwide, 50,000 square miles of rainforest is deforested
every year.
|
|
Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of
global carbon emissions.
|
|
Every second a slice of rainforest the size of a
football field is destroyed.
|
|
Every day 86,400 football fields of rainforest are
destroyed.
|
|
Every year 31 million football fields of
rainforest are destroyed.
|
|
Although they cover less than 2 percent of the
Earth's surface area, rainforests are home to over
50 percent of the world's plant and animal life.
|
|
A typical 5 square
mile area of Amazon rainforest supports 1,500
flowering plants, 750 species of tree, 450 species
of bird, and over 500 species of butterfly. But
soon it will all be gone.
|
|
More than
10,000 square miles of the Amazon
rainforest is deliberately burnt down every year to make way for cattle pastures. These
nutrient-poor
pastures are only capable of supporting very low
densities of cattle. Every dry season the pastures are set on
fire to promote new grass growth and to destroy cattle parasites.
The fires
rage uncontrolled, setting alight further areas of forest.
Deforested areas are much hotter and drier than the rainforests
- consequently the average temperature of the entire Amazonian
region rises and the humidity falls even more dramatically. This
causes major changes in the vegetation structure of the
remaining areas of rainforest, leading to reduced biodiversity
even in protected areas.
|
|
| |
Say
NO
to bio-fuel ! |
|
| |
Vast swathes of Brazilian rainforest, as much as 53 percent
in some states, have been deliberately set on fire by US-based
companies to make way for soybean plantations used for the
production of bio-fuel. In Borneo and Sumatra the rainforests
which are home to one of the world's most loved species, the
orang-utan, are being destroyed at a catastrophic rate and are
predicted to disappear entirely by 2020. The cause of the
devastation - massive expansion of oil palm plantations for production
of bio-fuel. |
|
| |
A study by the University of
Minnesota, published in February, found that growing
bio-fuel on converted rainforests, peat lands, savannas or
grasslands created up to 420 times ( yes, four hundred and
twenty ! ) more carbon dioxide
than it saved. |
|
| |
Several other reports have
predicted that if bio-fuel development continues at it's present
rate, it will cause in the
destruction of virtually all of
the world's rainforests within twenty years,
yet governments, prompted by commercial interests, insist on
continuing with this utter insanity. |
|
| |
This madness must stop ! Please visit the
rainforestportal website where you
can find more detailed information, and take part in
on-line petitions to save the Amazon
and the rainforests of Africa and Asia.
Don't leave it to someone else ! |
|
| |
image supplied
|
|
| |
|
How can YOU help to protect
rainforests ?
click
here
for further information on the topics below
|
-
drastically reduce consumerism
-
reduce your mileage - bio-fuel
in your petrol and diesel destroys rainforests
-
boycott tropical hardwoods
-
boycott South American beef - the
main cause of Amazonian deforestation
-
boycott oil palm products
-
the main cause of Asian rainforest deforestation
-
support initiatives to create
eco-friendly employment for indigenous peoples
-
support eco-tourism - creating
demand for protected nature reserves
-
reduce carbon emissions - slow
down the rate of climate change
-
visit
rainforest
conservation websites - find out how YOU can help !
-
lobby politicians and sign
on-line petitions
|
|
|
|
|
| |
PRESS RELEASE VICTORY !
Closer to Ending Congo's Ancient Rainforest Logging |
|
| |
January 19, 2009
The Democratic Republic of Congo is closer to ending ancient
rainforest logging, as some 60% of logging contracts on nearly 13
million hectares of forest have been cancelled. A long delayed
review of 156 logging deals, aimed at stamping out corruption and
enforcing minimum legal and environmental standards, found that
only 65 were "viable".
On several occasions Ecological
Internet's Earth Action Network has hastened this process with
timely protest alerts, exposing World Bank forest corruption and
successfully demanding the review, and we share with many others
in this victory. While it is heartening that the World Bank has
facilitated this logging concession review, it is sad that they
and so many others still cling to the myth that industrial logging
of millions of year old primeval ecosystems can ever benefit the
Earth's climate and biodiversity, or
local peoples.
Earth Action Network :
http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts/ |
|
|
|
| |
The above press release is proof that
YOU
can make a
huge difference, helping to save
the rainforests and their wonderful butterfly fauna !
Wherever in the world you live
please join the conservation
organisations who are fighting desperately to protect the
Amazon, the Andean cloudforests, and the rainforests of
Africa, south-east Asia, and eastern Australia.
Simply by adding
your name to their membership lists you increase their political
profile, proving that they have mass public support, and giving
them much greater "clout" when tackling governments and commercial
interests.
Please visit
the Rainforests page for more
information.
|
|
|
|
|
|
About this website
learnaboutbutterflies.com
was launched in December 2006. In less than 3 years it has become one of the most popular natural history websites
in Britain and has a
large following worldwide attracting regular
visitors from
Australia,
Austria, Belgium,
Brazil, Canada,
China,
Colombia,
Costa Rica,
Czech republic, Ecuador,
French Guiana, Germany,
Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan,
Kenya,
Malawi, Malaysia,
Mexico, Netherlands,
New Zealand, Panama,
Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines,
Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa,
Spain,
Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania,
Thailand, Turkey
and the United States.
learnaboutbutterflies.com
is a comprehensive website with a well founded reputation for
accuracy.
It is widely recognised as an
important information resource for universities, colleges, and
schools; and has a substantial following amongst amateur and
professional entomologists, ecology students, nature reserve
managers, wildlife writers, eco-tourism researchers, and natural
history photographers.
At
learnaboutbutterflies.com you'll find
hundreds of stunning
photos depicting many of the world's most beautiful butterflies, all
taken in their natural habitats. You'll also find over
600 pages of highly readable articles covering every aspect of their lives,
including anatomy, taxonomy, conservation, ecology, and detailed
species accounts covering
distribution, habitats and behavioural observations.
EVERY page
on this website is updated and republished on a continual basis, so you
are guaranteed to find
a host of new photos and additional information every time you visit !
|
|
The information presented on
this website is based on 35 years of extensive personal observation
of butterflies in their habitats, supplemented by data
collated from reference books, and from professional
biologists, taxonomists and ecologists. In order to make the
articles more readable I have dispensed with source
references on the individual pages, but these include
such eminent international authorities as Bernard
d'Abrera, Andrew Neild, Robert Robbins,
Jorge Bizzaro,
Curtis Callaghan, Gerardo Lamas, Jason Hall,
Keith
Willmott, Maurizio Bollino, Pat Haynes,
Stéphane Attal,
Ronald Brabant
and Bernard Hermíer to whom I express my
sincere gratitude.
I also pay tribute to
Matthew Oates and Jeremy Thomas whose knowledge of the
ecology of British butterflies first inspired me to take a deeper
interest in the subject. Last but by no means least, I would
like to thank my lepidopterist friends, particularly Steve
Meredith, Andrew Neild,
Tony Hoare, Peter Bruce-Jones, Colin Baker and the late Doris Ashby for the many shared
pleasures on our various field trips and expeditions. |
|
|
Feedback !
Feedback !
Feedback !
|
learnaboutbutterflies very much welcomes your feedback.
If you experience any technical problems with the website, or
discover any inaccuracies that need addressing, or would like
to offer any comments or suggestions, please click
here.
All messages will receive a reply ! |
|
learnaboutbutterflies
would like to express our
sincere thanks to
Bernard and
Lucilla d'Abrera for their
very generous donation of 11 volumes of "Butterflies
of the World". This indispensable series is of immense value as
a tool for the identification of species photographed for this
website, and helps to ensure that species surveys supplied to reserve managers are as
accurate as possible.
|
I
would very much like to obtain a copy of Neotropical
Part 2 ( Ithomiinae, Heliconiinae etc ) so if anyone
has one for sale please
contact me. It would complete my collection of this
series, and be put to very good use ! |
I'm pleased to include a brief autobiography of
Bernard
d'Abrera -
probably the most
well known and respected entomologist in the world, author not only of the "Butterflies of the World" series, but
also of "Birdwing Butterflies of the World", "Hawkmoths of the
World", "Saturniidae Mundi", and the scholarly and
controversial "Concise Atlas of Butterflies of the World",
which includes many stunning photographs of butterflies in
their natural habitat, as well as a huge selection of set
specimens.
I would
also like to express my gratitude to Colin Baker for his kind
donation of computer software, and to Anthony Hoare for
generously donating a copy of Keith Willmott's "The Genus
Adelpha" to the learnaboutbutterflies library.
|
Unless otherwise stated,
all text and photographs on this website
are the property of Adrian Hoskins and protected by Copyright.
Images or text on this website must not be reproduced or published in part
or in whole elsewhere in any form without prior written permission
from Adrian Hoskins.
Website designed, produced and owned by
Adrian Hoskins
|
Disclaimer :
learnaboutbutterflies strives to maintain
high levels of accuracy on this website but the webmaster
cannot be held responsible for
any consequence arising from any misinformation
or error.
