Natures wonders: nasty butterflies (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 01, 2021, 00:53 (1121 days ago) @ David Turell

Really, some are:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/butterflies-behaving-badly-what-they...

"Take this zebra longwing, Heliconius charithonia. It looks innocent enough.

"But it’s also famously poisonous, and its caterpillars are cannibals that eat their siblings. And that’s hardly shocking compared with its propensity for something called pupal rape.

"Once you know that a pupa is the butterfly in its chrysalis—in between being a larva and an adult—then pupal rape is pretty much what it sounds like. As a female gets ready to emerge from her chrysalis, a gang of males swarms around her, jostling and flapping wings to push each other aside. The winner of this tussle mates with the female, but he’s often so eager to do so that he uses his sharp claspers to rip into the chrysalis and mate with her before she even emerges.

***

"And don’t think for a minute that zebra longwings are an anomaly—plenty of their kin are bad boys, too.

"One day in Kenya’s North Nandi forest, Dino Martins, an entomologist, watched a spectacular battle between two white-barred Charaxes. A fallen log was oozing fermenting sap, and while a fluffy pile of butterflies was sipping and slowly getting drunk, the two white-barred butterflies showed up and started a bar fight. Spiraling and slicing at one another with serrated wings, the fight ended with the loser’s shredded wings fluttering gently to the forest floor.

"Martins, a former National Geographic Emerging Explorer, wrote about Charaxes, or emperor butterflies,

“'They are fast and powerful,” he writes. “And their tastes run to stronger stuff than nectar: fermenting sap, fresh dung and rotting carrion are all particular favourites.”

"It’s called mud-puddling, and it’s very common butterfly behavior. It doesn’t have to be dung, although that’s always nice; you may see flocks of butterflies having a nip of a dead animal (as depicted in this diorama of butterflies eating a piranha), drinking sweat or tears, or just enjoying a plain old mud puddle.

***

"Butterflies start life as caterpillars, which are far from harmless if you’re a tasty plant, and can be carnivorous. Some are even parasites: Maculinea rebeli butterflies trick ants into raising their young. The caterpillars make sounds that mimic queen ants, which pick them up and carry them into their colonies like the well-to-do being toted in sedan chairs. Inside, they are literally treated as royalty, with worker ants regurgitating meals to them and nurse ants occasionally sacrificing ant babies to feed them when food is scarce. Butterflies invented the ultimate babysitting con."

Comment: Who knew? All part of the ecosystems they are in .