butterflies, from today's Guardian

[Henri Lipmanowicz]

The researchers could have saved a lot of trouble and just ask Harrison; he
would have told them what butterflies can do.



Henri

  _____

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Marty
Boroson
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 4:36 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: butterflies, from today's Guardian



Butterflies equipped with tracker devices

Tim Radford, science editor
Wednesday April 6, 2005

Guardian

Butterflies know where they are going. They might look indecisive as they
flutter by, but British scientists now know better.

A team from Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire fitted peacock butterflies
and small tortoiseshells with radar backpacks and tracked their flightpaths.


The radar fitting must be one of the most intricate technological challenges
ever attempted on wildlife. The delicate creatures had to be held down,
given the lepidopterist's equivalent of a bikini wax and then fitted with
transponders weighing just 12-thousandths of a gram. Researchers have used
the same technique to track the flights of bees and bumblebees.

The insects could fly normally: the transponders weighed between 4% and 8%
of their total bodyweight.

The scientists watched the butterflies play, feed and even mate. "It
obviously didn't bother them that much," said Lizzie Cant of Rothamsted.

"Butterflies are good pollinators and I wanted to know whether or not they
fly along linear features, along a fence row, or whether they can fly quite
directly; whether from a distance they can see a patch and fly to it across
the fields."

On the evidence so far, they can do the latter.

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