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> There are exceptions, of course. It seems that some of the smaller butterflies may exhibit wing positions fairly close to that of a dead, pinned specimen I'v

> There are exceptions, of course. It seems that some of the smaller butterflies may exhibit wing positions fairly close to that of a dead, pinned specimen I've actually seen some really large butterflies that look pretty much like the "pinned wings dead butterfly" when it flies. I tried to film it, but couldn't get a good shot. I found this article interesting when it came out, but after seeing living butterflies that look exactly like it says they shouldn't, I'm not going to spread the idea that all these butterfly images are wrong. I have seen thousands of butterflies in my life, and yes, most of them have their forewings much further back. Not that I ever paid too close attention, even after reading this article for the first time. It was just a striking image when I saw these huge butterflies on holiday in December 2019, and they looked like a stereotypical animated movie aesthetic butterflies with the "wrong" wings, and I thought it was amusing.

BadOakOx 5y ago
I was just thinking about this. All the photos the author uses are of butterflies resting. Thanks for confirming my intuition that while butterflies fly they spread their wings.
- kadoban 5y ago
  They do spread their wings in flight, but the few photos/vids I bothered to find it's still quite distinct from the classical pinned position (in terms of the angles fore/aft more than anything). I'm sure it's a _possible_ position in which to find many species, but it seems like at best a rare one.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    Part of it is that mostly I've seen, in person, butterflies in flight - they rarely alight on a plant close enough to inspect in detail and in flight they do appear to flap like a book opening and closing; one doesn't really see the pitch changes of the wing, it looks like a simple motion. I've got some pictures of red admirals (it painted ladies, not sure) resting in "dead" pose on brambles somewhere that I took only because I'd seen this article.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > mostly I've seen, in person, butterflies in flight - they rarely alight on a plant close enough to inspect in detail and in flight they do appear to flap like a book opening and closing My father grows milkweed to support a population of monarchs. They also flap their wings open and closed while resting.

BadOakOx 5y ago

I was just thinking about this. All the photos the author uses are of butterflies resting. Thanks for confirming my intuition that while butterflies fly they spread their wings.

kadoban 5y ago
They do spread their wings in flight, but the few photos/vids I bothered to find it's still quite distinct from the classical pinned position (in terms of the angles fore/aft more than anything). I'm sure it's a _possible_ position in which to find many species, but it seems like at best a rare one.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Part of it is that mostly I've seen, in person, butterflies in flight - they rarely alight on a plant close enough to inspect in detail and in flight they do appear to flap like a book opening and closing; one doesn't really see the pitch changes of the wing, it looks like a simple motion. I've got some pictures of red admirals (it painted ladies, not sure) resting in "dead" pose on brambles somewhere that I took only because I'd seen this article.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > mostly I've seen, in person, butterflies in flight - they rarely alight on a plant close enough to inspect in detail and in flight they do appear to flap like a book opening and closing My father grows milkweed to support a population of monarchs. They also flap their wings open and closed while resting.