Insects, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 21, 2006

Slim Secret: Butterflies Burn Fat in Cocoon

What goes on in a cocoon as a caterpillar changes into a butterfly remains one of nature's best kept secrets. But a new study reveals one part of the process: The insects burn a tremendous amount of fat while hibernating during the transformation. It takes drastic chemical changes to morph...

May 8, 2006

California Sees Worst Butterfly Season in 35 Years

Cold and wet conditions have ruined California's butterfly season and could contribute to some species disappearing from the state altogether. It has been the worst spring for butterflies of my 35 in California, said Art Shapiro, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis. There will...

Jun 14, 2006

Scientists Create Butterfly Hybrid

Researchers have created a hybrid butterfly whose genes and color are blends of two other species. New species typically arise from the branching of one species into two, but in the July 15 issue of the journal Nature, scientists report the first clear evidence that evolution in animals can work...

Mar 3, 2008

Butterflies Remember Caterpillar Days

The metamorphoses that caterpillars undergo rank among the most radical transformations in the animal kingdom. So it's rather amazing that a butterfly or moth can remember things from its caterpillar days. Amazing, but true, a new study finds. The broadly held view of what happens during metamorphosis is that the...

Aug 31, 2008

Why Butterflies Have 'Eye Spots'

Some moths and butterflies bear circular, high-contrast marks on their wings that have long been thought to scare off predators by mimicking the eyes of the predators' own enemies. Not so, say Martin Stevens and two colleagues at the University of Cambridge in England, who argue the marks work simply...

Feb 20, 2009

New Butterfly Discovered with Mustache Disguise

A mustache on a butterfly has tipped off curators at the Natural History Museum in London that a specimen in their collection for 90 years actually belongs to a new species. A curator found the disguised insect, initially collected from the dry Magdalena valleys of Colombia, among the 3 million...

Feb 17, 2010

Migrating Monarch Butterflies Have Longer Wings

Monarch butterflies that migrate for long distances have evolved significantly bigger and longer wings than their cousins who just stay put, a new study finds. Such traits are known to enhance flight abilities in other migratory species, which could explain why the far-flying butterflies evolved such a wing design. Researchers...

Feb 21, 2010

Butterflies Evolved UV-vision to Help Find Mates

The evolution of vision in butterflies may have led to the wide range of patterns and wing colors present in nature. Naturalists had once hypothesized that wing-color mimicry, which allowed butterflies to resemble bad-tasting relatives, emerged as a defense mechanism to confuse predators such as birds. That same disguise was...

May 20, 2010

Artificial Butterfly Reveals Secrets of Swallowtail Flight

Researchers have built and flown a replica of a swallowtail butterfly to see exactly how this puzzlingly big-winged, slow-flapping insect soars. The results could inspire the design of future aircraft based on the swallowtail's distinctive mode of flying. Swallowtails have giant wings relative to the size and weight of their...

Jun 1, 2010

Butterfly Effect Could Improve Security of Money

Scientists have reproduced the brilliant optical effect of tropical butterfly wings. The advance could lower bank fraud by leading to improved security in the printing of paper money. The butterfly effect could be used to encrypt information on money or other valuable items and reduce forgery. The shiny green patches...

Jun 14, 2010

Source of Shimmering Butterfly Wing Colors Revealed

The rich, shimmering colors of some butterfly wings are produced not by pigments, but by a special geometric formation of cells, a new study suggests. Researchers used an X-ray scattering technique to image the wings from two groups of butterflies – the lycaenid and papilionid families – in 3-D. They...

Jul 28, 2010

Eastern Butterflies Reveal Their Midwestern Roots

There's an old adage that almost nobody who lives in New York is actually from New York. Now the same can be said about the East Coast and monarch butterflies. Researchers from Canada's University of Guelph discovered that almost 90 percent of the monarchs they sampled along the United States'...

Oct 15, 2010

Amazing Tropical Butterflies

Jagged Leafwing (Image credit: AMNH/D. Finnin.) At the live butterfly exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History now in its 13th year visitors can get face-to-face with the 500 fluttering tropical butterflies living inside. The Jagged Leafwing, above, dines on fruit juice from a freshly cut orange slice, one...

Oct 16, 2010

Dances With Butterflies

NEW YORK — Four- and 5-year-old children from the Goddard Riverside Head Start program strapped on butterfly wings and fluttered (albeit with both feet on the ground) through a live exhibit while butterflies flapped around and perched on lucky visitors. Wide-eyes and giggles filled the vivarium — think big walk-in...

Oct 18, 2010

Monarch Butterflies Self-Medicate

Monarch butterflies use medicinal plants to treat their offspring for disease, before they even hatch, a new study finds. Monarch caterpillars feed on any of dozens of species of milkweed plants, including some species that contain high levels of a group of chemicals callled cardenolides. These chemicals do not harm...