I’ve always felt that butterflies were show-offs, or maybe even a bit mad!
When nearly all other flying insects try to keep a low profile, with a nice plain appearance and speedy movements, butterflies seem to waltz around doing the exact opposite. Like bits of brightly coloured paper caught in a breeze, fluttering about chaotically in all directions.
They have crazily big wings for their bodies - unnecessarily big - bigger than any other insect of a similar size. Many have amazingly loud and eye-catching colours too, that they wave around like big flags, as if to say, ‘Hello birds, here I am, come and get me!’
As caterpillars they have to be very worried about predators, but it’s almost as if having gone through all of that hiding under leaves, and emerging as a butterfly unharmed, they feel as though they have the right to relax a little bit and not worry so much.
They are really beautiful though, and it’s only when you start to look more closely, that you begin to see that there’s actually an amazing design behind the apparent madness. In fact, the truth behind a butterfly’s design and biology is so bizarrely clever that it continues to inspire (and confuse!) humans, and science, in really remarkable ways.
Maths experts and flight engineers for example, are busy trying to understand the secrets behind a butterfly’s flight. It turns out that those jumpy, random flutters are in fact a very clever and unique skill.
Butterflies flap their wings by contracting and retracting their bodies, and unlike many other winged-animals, this means that they can move their wings in a useful figure of 8 pattern. What seems like crazy flitting about is actually one of their best defences against predators - allowing for fast turns, strength, and incredible movement. In fact, butterflies can easily fly with broken wings, or even with a missing wing if they want too.
Their wings are also very special for another reason. We all know that butterflies are often covered with bright colours and intricate shapes – there are so many shapes and colours in fact, that an artist has managed to find a complete (and very convincing) alphabet hidden in their patterns! That’s an interesting way of learning your ABC’s!
What you might not realise though, is that they actually don’t have any colour at all.
A butterfly’s wings are transparent! The colour that we see, is in fact created by a dusting of thousands of tiny scales, that mess around with the way light-waves touch each other as they hit and reflect from the wing. They do this in such a mind-bogglingly smart way, that they can create a giant amount of different colours and patterns.
Their ability to do this is so impressive and unique, that it’s inspiring scientists to create new nano-technology and smart-imagery – that uses loads of tiny computers (too tiny to see without a microscope) that team up together to do amazing things!
So maybe they have the right to show-off a little bit. They’ve been happily floating about on this planet for at least 50 million years after all, and we’re only just beginning to fully understand their secrets.
So next time you see an butterfly, clumsily tumbling from flower to flower, remember that they’re smarter than they might at first seem. In fact, we’re learning from them! They know exactly what they’re doing and they’re doing it very well indeed.
Butterflies need out help!
Have you noticed less butterflies than usual? Sadly, it's not surprising. Lots of our UK species seem to be in trouble and are dramatically declining in numbers every year.
There are all sorts of things we can do though! Things that can help give them a safe, friendly home to re-build their numbers and fill our skies again. You could grow flowers for butterflies, or even have a butterfly banquet! One of the best ways though, to help butterflies thrive again, is to grow food for caterpillars. Caterpillars are quite picky eaters, and they need specific plants to munch on. So without those plants they'd be no caterpillars, and without caterpillars they'd be no butterflies!
See butterflies in action
If you want to see a butterfly's amazing wings in action, whilst you're still in the process of making your garden butterfly-friendly, why not pop along to one of our reserves? We have lots that a particularly great for butterfly-spotting!
I thought this was an amazing article! What cries out to me at every part of it is the clear evidence of design, and where there is design, there has to be a designer, which to me, is God. I have a problem with the idea that butterflies have been around for some 50 million years, because I am not convinced of the argument for evolution. To me, a butterfly's emergence from a chrysalis is nothing short of a miracle and it is such an exquisitely beautiful creature that I praise God for it.