Butterflies

[maximus otter]

A butterfly found pressed within a 387-year-old book could be as old as the tome itself, a university says.

The creature was found between the pages of the Theatre of Insects in the Jerwood Library of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

The college acquired the book in 1990 and said the butterfly's preservation could date back as far as 1634.

The small tortoiseshell butterfly was found next to its accompanying printed image.

The Theatre of Insects, also known as Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum, was [written by Thomas Moffet [Moufet, Muffet] (1553-1604), and was] the first book published in England to be exclusively about insects.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-56551453

maximus otter

 

[EnolaGaia]

New field research (publication still pending) has discovered that adult milkweed butterflies - who will scratch milkweed leaves to suck up useful compounds first accumulated in their youth - will also scratch and suck these compounds from their own species' young (caterpillars).

Is it vampirism if you kill off the ones you 'bite'? Is it cannibalism if you only suck them dry and never eat their flesh?

Milkweed butterflies tear open caterpillars and drink them alive

This is the first time scientists have documented the grisly behavior.

Not all caterpillars grow up to be beautiful butterflies. Some become living milkshakes for their dads, who guzzle caterpillar body fluids to attract the ladies.

Recently, scientists reported the first evidence of butterflies sipping from the bodies of caterpillars — dead and alive. They observed adult milkweed butterflies in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, using tiny claws on their feet to scratch wounds in caterpillars' bodies so they could lap the liquid that oozed out.

Male butterflies seek certain compounds produced by milkweed (flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae), which repel predators and help the butterflies produce pheromones that attract females. Since caterpillars are stuffed with juices from chewed-up plants, they make an easy target for butterflies looking to chemically boost their attractiveness to females. ...

Butterflies in the Danainae family are known as milkweed butterflies because most of the caterpillars in this group feed on milkweed plants, which contain toxic alkaloids that are absorbed by the caterpillars and then processed into useful chemicals that protect them from predators. Another use for these alkaloids is in mating pheromones, which are transferred to females in the males' sperm packet "as a nuptial gift," the scientists wrote.

Most milkweed butterfly species are found in Asia, but four species live in North America, one of which is the colorful monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) ... Male butterflies in this family are known for a unique behavior called leaf-scratching, in which adults supplement the plant sap they absorbed as hungry caterpillars by scraping at milkweed leaves with their tiny claws to release alkaloid-loaded sap for drinking through their long proboscis. ...

But on Dec. 9, 2019, lead study author Yi-Kai Tea, a doctoral candidate in the University of Sydney's School of Life and Environmental Sciences, and co-author Jonathan Soong Wei, a naturalist in Singapore, saw milkweed butterflies in Indonesia's Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve that were scratching at a different sap-loaded source: live milkweed caterpillars. ...

"Multiple adults were observed scratching many caterpillars along a stretch of coastal vegetation" that spanned more than 1,600 feet (500 meters) ... They then saw the butterflies actively drink "from the wounded and oozing caterpillars" for hours, with the butterflies sometimes gathering in mixed-species groups. So intent were the butterflies on drinking from the caterpillars that not even the touch of a human observer could distract them ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/butterflies-drink-their-babies.html

 

[Sid]

I was out this afternoon for a walk after having had a week-and-a-half's cold on me, so it felt good in the limited Sunshine. On my way I was surprised to see a very dark (black in appearance) Butterfly "in November!"
Think it must have been a particularly dark 'Peacock' perhaps?

 

[Cochise]

I've had a butterfly (Red admiral? Tortoishell? colourful anyway) fluttering about the house for the last couple of days. I haven't let it out because outside its windy and wet and cold, so on balance it's better off starving to death - or whatever they do - in the warm.