Happy Earth Week from Gem Joy!
Meet our favorite Gem Joy pollinators
Did you know there are tiny, magical creatures flitting about, spreading love and helping flowers grow? They're called pollinators, and they are AMAZING. According to the US Department of Agriculture, one of out of every three bites of our food is created with the help of pollinators.
At Gem Joy, we're completely enchanted by these little earth heroes. Here are some of our favorite facts about our pollinator friends:
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Bees: Bees communicate with dance! A bee who finds a new source of nectar returns to the hive and gives directions in a figure-eight shaped dance. Details in the dance convey information on the angle of the sun relative to the food source and the hive, and how far they will have to fly to reach the new flowers!
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Dragonfly: The Dragonfly featured in Gem Joy is the Red-veined Dropwing variety. It is a small dragonfly, like most modern varieties that have wingspans of 2-5 inches. Yet in prehistoric days - think hundreds of millions of years ago - dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve and had wingspans of up to 2 feet!
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Monarch Butterfly: Every fall, millions of young Monarchs migrate from their summer homes in Canada and the Northern US to their winter homes in Southern California or Mexico, a trip of 2,500 miles!
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Hummingbird: The Calliope Hummingbird featured in Gem Joy is the smallest bird in North America. They weigh one-tenth of an ounce and their eggs are the size of a blueberry!
- Blue Morpho Butterfly: The wings of these beauties contain no blue pigments. It is the tiny scales covering the wings' surfaces that make our eyes perceive their vibrant shimmering blue color! This phenomenon is called Structural Color. Another animal with Structural Color? Peacock feathers and eyes!
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, USDA, National Geographic
