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| Swallowtail attack. photo: Christina Handley |
She is gracious about sending me photos to use on the Blog, and we thank her very much.
Right now, here at Bondi Village Resort, the butterflies are abundant. This is the time of year we see swallowtails decorating the lilacs, and the butterfly bush in the garden. Flitting from blossom to blossom.
They are far more than just decoration, these butterflies. They have lessons to teach.
The caterpillars, for example, are a fairly boring green, that looks a little like a tiny snake. That's done on purpose. And if you pester one (and look like you plan to eat it), the little guy will rear up, and stick out his best defense mechanism: this is a fleshy Y-shaped organ called and osmeterium. It looks like the forked tongue of a snake, and thanks to the caterpillars propensity to dine on members of the carrot family, it comes complete with a pretty foul odour (if you are close enough, which people rarely are, so be not alarmed) The idea is to make the predator (usually a bird, or a yellowjacket hornet, think twice about tackling this fearsome beast.
Those intensely dark black scales on the wings, they're pretty funky too. They reflect virtually no sunlight -- perhaps an adaptation to help regulate body temperature. Engineers, trying to save the planet, get all tingly about this: the flat scale and its ability to absorb solar energy, make it ideal for solar cells. In 2009 a team of researchers created a titanium dioxide cast of the wing scales that improved the power output of solar cells by 10%. They hope to have a version ready for commercial use within five years.
So, that old saw that if a butterfly fans its wings in Brazil, we feel the effect in the wind in Labrador... it's true.
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