Watch: How to fix a broken butterfly wing
Yes, it is possible for you to restore a butterfly’s broken wing so it can fly again
by GrrlScientist for The Guardian | @GrrlScientist
This is an odd and interesting little video that I ran across that you might enjoy: how to repair a butterfly’s broken wing and restore its ability to fly without harming the butterfly.
The methods demonstrated will work for any butterfly species, but in this video, the patient is an adult male monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. It is a milkweed butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. It is probably the most famous of all North American butterflies because of its striking black-and-orange wing coloration and its lengthy three-generational migration pattern. Surprisingly (to me anyway), monarch butterflies are capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, wind and weather conditions permitting. It occasionally pops up in Western Europe and even in the United Kingdom.
Did any of you cringe whilst watching the narrator pick up the butterfly by its wings with his fingers? I was always told not to do that because the oils on my skin would damage or destroy the delicate scales on the butterfly wings.
If you would like to learn more about the foundation that created this video, you should take a peek at the Live Monarch Foundation’s lovely website.
Read more butterfly science:
GrrlScientist. “DNA Barcodes Reveal Two Distinct Butterflies Are Male And Female Of Same Species”, Forbes, 4 August 2017. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “Fragmented Habitats Accelerate Butterfly Evolution — And Extinction”, Forbes, 25 February 2016. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “Birth of the blue morphos”, The Guardian, 13 April 2015. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “Why does this butterfly hiss?”, The Guardian, 3 February 2014. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “Watch: A century of butterflies and moths”, The Guardian, 14 August 2012. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “Watch: Weird and wonderful butterflies in the Cal Academy Collection”, The Guardian, 26 April 2012. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “Watch: Supergene controls butterfly mimicry”, The Guardian, 18 August 2011. (Medium link.)
GrrlScientist. “The hot and cold of butterfly dancing”, The Guardian, 1 February 2011. (Medium link.)
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Originally published at The Guardian on 30 November 2011.
