Butterflies are flying insects of the order Lepidoptera, distinguished from moths by their diurnal activity and generally brighter colouring. Butterflies are beautiful insects, they are made up six jointed legs, 3 body parts, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, and an exoskeleton. The three body parts are the head, thorax and the abdomen. One of the butterflies which has been described as a gem in the insect world is the butterfly named Greto oto.
Greto oto is the scientific name for the buttetfly called the Glasswinged butterfly. A member of the subfamily Danainae, tribe Ithomiini, subtribe Godyridina. The African Glasswings are of the genus called Ornipholidotos commonly known as White Mimics; the Australian glasswing are of the genus family called Acraea andromacha commonly known as Small greasy; the Spanish call it the Crystal buttetfly.
Greta oto is a brush-footed butterfly or four-footed butterfly reason is that it has been found to stand on only four of its legs and the other two curled up when feeding on flowers, also the four legs has brush-like hairs. The transparency of its wings arises from the alliance of three major properties; the low absorption of the visible light by the material making up its wings, the low scattering of the light passing through the wings and finally from the low reflection of the light interfering on the wings surface.
The irregular structure of the wings has been one of its strong poccession which helps it from being eaten by predators, the transparent wings helps it to blend with the enviroment to avoid being spotted by predators while in flight or while at rest. Another habit it has that helps to protect it agianst predators is its ability to feed on plants that contains alkaloids. They are able to store this materials in their tissue through to adult stage, alkaloids are toxic to predators that feeds on butterflies it can also cause them great harm. Aside the fact that the alkaloids are toxic to predators it makes the Glasswing butterfly to be distasteful. The male adult also uses the alkaloids to produce sex hormones which are very essential during lekking in their mating seasons.
Glasswing undergo complete metamorphosis, they go through a life cycle consisting of an egg, larvae, pupa and adult. The adult butterflies have a long life span of 6 to 12 weeks. Glasswings are terrestial insects, they can fly at speeds of up to 8 miles per hour. They can be found in warm rainly humid forrest with abundant flowering plants. They feed on flowers like Lantana but layes their eggs on Cestrum plants, Cestrum plants are species of the flowering plant in the family Solanaceae.
The Glasswing adult butterfly have some interesting characters; they go on long migrations and they also engage in lekking. Lekking is an aggregation of male animals for the purpose of courtship and display.