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#8: Butterfly Wings





Litinsects #8: Butterfly Wings

Have you ever heard that you shouldn’t touch a butterfly’s wings or it will die? Well why is that...?

Who remembers what I explained yesterday about Latin names? Butterflies and moths belong to the group LEPIDOPTERA, from the Greek words lepis for scale and pteron for wing. You probably guessed it already: butterfly wings are covered in SCALES! (Anyone starting to see a pattern with the names here? 😉)

  • Butterfly scales are actually modified, flattened SETAE (aka hairs) that either partially or entirely cover the wings of most species. Some look like roof tiles, like on this here monarch, while some look more thread-like
  • Scales protect and insulate the insect, but underneath the wing is actually transparent! Some species, like the GLASSWING BUTTERFLY, lack scales and have totally amazing see-through wings!
  • Scales are responsible for the coloration of butterfly wings in one of two ways. First of all, scales contain PIGMENTS, which are responsible for a lot of the wing colors we see. But some other colors may be caused by STRUCTURAL COLORATION, in which microscopic structures cause optical effects due to light refraction. Structural coloration is a super cool phenomenon that is responsible for many of the iridescent blues and greens we see in nature, like in Morpho butterflies 🦋, peacock feathers 🦚 and some beetles
So why might touching a butterfly’s wings kill it? Well handling a butterfly can cause a lot of the scales to rub off. Have you ever touched one and seen that dust on your finger afterwards? Yup, those are wing scales. So if enough scales get rubbed off, it could impact the individual’s ability to absorb heat, which could eventually lead to its death...

P.S. These 3 pics are some of my favorite microscope photos that I’ve taken so far! They are taken at 10x, 20x and 40x magnification and I absolutely LOVE how perfectly you can see the scales here 🤓
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