A Battered Butterfly

People visiting the Flight Encounter at MOSI Outside love to take photos of our butterflies. Their delicate colorful wings, the detail of a proboscis dipped into a flower, the occasional butterfly landing on someone's head - all of these make for great photo ops. But this butterfly photographed in the exhibit recently really wasn't ready for his closeup. Life had taken its toll, and shown that being a butterfly isn't just about flitting around visiting flowers and basking in the sun.

An elderly Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus)

Butterflies face a lot of dangers in their short lives. Most only live two weeks, but during that time they will encounter numerous predators like birds, lizards, and small mammals. Though the wings of the butterfly itself provide no nutrients to a predator, it is the easiest way to catch a butterfly. Predators make a grab for the butterfly wings, and if they're luck enough to hang on, they can make a snack from the butterfly's body. However, it's just as likely that a portion of the wing may break off, allowing the butterfly to escape. Depending on the amount of wing missing, they may not be able to fly as strongly, but they still live to fly another day. (Human fingers can be just as damaging to butterfly wings as any predator, so remember to look but not touch when observing butterflies.)

Butterflies can also become battered by their environment. They may need to fly into dense shrubbery to access flowers for nectar or to find host plants to lay their eggs. Any contact their wings make with another surface will cause scales to be rubbed off, and these do not regrow. Severe weather can do damage to a butterfly that is unable to find shelter, especially heavy rain or winds that blow them around. The faded appearance of an aged butterfly is due to the loss of scales, which provide the color we see on butterfly wings.

By the end of a couple of weeks, most butterflies look fairly battered, although not all look quite as beat up as this one does. They have a surprising resiliency to deal with a rough and tumble natural world, though, and remind us that in the end, the strong survive to sustain the species.