![]() Biologists and photographers have studied butterfly aerodynamics, and the Google take-home is that the wing motion is intricate, although too quick to see…another example of the bewildering complexity of simple life forms. But that couldn’t work- they’d just bang against the ground. Looking out the window right now, it looks like the wing is a firm paddle flapping up and down. What bugs me abut butterflies is how they manage to fly. (Gratuitous inclusion of scary tie-in.) How much do we fear Zika and West Nile? How dangerous is Naled to butterflies and to children? How much protection does Naled spewed from airplanes provide? What alternatives exist? All that is beyond the scope of our happy little blog. Naled is a chlorinated organophosphate related to the now-banned insecticides Dursban and Diazinon, and also to the genocidal gas Sarin. Aerial spraying of insecticides, chiefly the insecticide Naled to counter mosquito-borne viral diseases, is harsh on butterflies, controversially in Miami-Dade. The lepidopteran equivalent of a wedding ring.Įver sense you don’t see as many or as diverse butterflies like you once did? Maybe your memory has gilded your childhood, or then again it might have something to do with pesticides, or extreme herbicidal weed control. The male gifts the female with a cyanide-laced bomb (in the spermatophore) to defend the female and the brood, and leaves an “antiaphrodesiac” chemical to signal other males to flutter off. The boys are drawn to the larval mating area partly by chemicals released by caterpillar damage to the host plants. When zebra longwings roost in crowds like a herd of zebras, do their “zebra” markings render angry birds unable to single out individual victims?Īfter squabbles for dibs, males mate with the females while the females are still in their pupa or as they emerge. The zebra stripe protection comes from confusing big kitties by obscuring the outlines of single individuals in the herd. Here is a thought: Zebras, the hooved mammals, obviously have similar striping, but not as a poison warning. What protection comes from a butterfly gang? Not very scary after all. They circle home to the same roosting sites at night to cluster for protection from predators. Zebra longwings are among the pollinators known as trap-liners, able to remember a recurring feeding route. ![]() ![]() Further, it probably provides raw materials for manufacturing those cyanide-based poisons. The pollen protein extends their lifespan beyond most other butterflies, and boosts their reproductive capacity. For pollen, they like members of the squash family, although I do not know if that preference shows up in Florida. Zebra longwings and close relatives are the only butterflies known to consume pollen in addition to nectar, diversifying their salad bar. The adult food plants are diverse, and the longwings love firebush. The larvae bite off the hair tips, and weave a protective silk mat over the defenses. The black and white bristly caterpillars can denude their host passionvines, defeating the plant’s protective hairs. Two functions for one pattern are possible. There is second way to interpret the color pattern, but hold that thought a moment. I’m not sure what percent of the toxicity comes from the host plant as opposed to what the adult manufactures, probably substantially the latter. Beautiful, yet treacherous with cyanide-related poisons. The striking color pattern is probably best interpretable as “danger don’t eat me” warning coloration. peruvianus up through Texas and Florida, migrating sporadically into the central U.S., knocked back southward by Jack Frost. The Zebra longwing ranges from rubbing shoulders with H. Zebra longwings are part of the large warm-climate butterfly genus, Heliconius where most species have coloration different from ours, although the related Heliconius peruvianus in Peru and Ecuador is almost identical. Just a guess, but Bidens exposes pollen aplenty. ![]()
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