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<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2><STRONG><FONT face=Arial size=5>Butterflies
equipped with tracker devices</FONT></STRONG><FONT size=3><FONT face=Arial>
</FONT>
<P></P></FONT><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif size=2><B>Tim Radford, science
editor</B><BR></FONT><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif size=2><B>Wednesday
April 6, 2005</B><BR></FONT><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif size=2>
<P><B>Guardian</B></P></FONT><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif
size=2>Butterflies know where they are going. They might look indecisive as they
flutter by, but British scientists now know better.
<P>A team from Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire fitted peacock butterflies
and small tortoiseshells with radar backpacks and tracked their flightpaths.
<P>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.
<P>The insects could fly normally: the transponders weighed between 4% and 8% of
their total bodyweight.
<P>The scientists watched the butterflies play, feed and even mate. "It
obviously didn't bother them that much," said Lizzie Cant of Rothamsted.
<P>"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."
<P>On the evidence so far, they can do the latter.</FONT><FONT
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