Yeah so butterflies are pretty. You know it, I know,
whatever. They're all, fluttering around, like, 'hey look how graceful I am, I
bet you wish you could fly like me. Check me out.''
So being the homeschooled kid that I was, I loved nature
books; seriously, Readers Digest North American Wildlife was my constant
companion. I memorized descriptions, copied the drawings, I knew where every
animal, bird, bug, and fish were in the book. There were lots of other nature
books in my life, but that one was by far my favorite. But anyway, back to the
lepidopterans.
So butterflies were mentioned today by a pregnant
coworker of mine who is having a hard time finding gender-neutral baby clothes.
She had found something yellow, but it had butterflies on it, making it
feminine. Later while I was in the shower, there happened to be a moth flying
around. I hurried up so as to try to give it a better chance of surviving
(steam = water vapors = probably not good for moth wings) and that got me
thinking, butterflies and moths are pretty fricking amazing!
They start out as eggs, then wormy caterpillars, then they
weave cocoons out of pure magic, and then transform themselves with more
freaking magic into beautiful flying furry(some) creatures of happiness and
joy! Okay, so, to stay on topic, the wings are what I want to talk about. The
moth in the shower episode made me wonder if parents are still teaching their
children not to touch butterflies/moths (or maybe kids don't care so much
anymore). It was my parents that taught me this. They told me if you touch the
wings of a butterfly/moth, the "dust" will rub off and it won't be
able to fly, therefore causing it to die. Turns out, that's not really true.
The "dust" is actually microscopic scales. Scales!
So butterflies are basically dragons. Except for the whole breathing fire
thing, but, close enough right? The scales are covering the super thin membrane
of the actual wing. Losing scales will not deem the butterfly un-flightworthy,
but rather may just expose some of the translucent membrane; if enough scales
are lost and too much membrane is exposed, the wings can become torn, leading
to the inability to fly. Not only do the scales provide the beautiful color on
the wings, dark scales soak in the sun’s rays and some are even
scented(pheromones)!
So yeah, butterflies are pretty darn awesome.
