15 ms·
Butterflies flew 2,600 miles across the Atlantic without stopping
- treeFall 2y agoHow do we know they didn't land on ocean debris?
- gfxxxx 2y agoWhy would it matter? Its not food.
- guiporto 2y agoI live in a city in northeastern Brazil where the prevailing winds blow from the sea to the land. From March to May, the air is filled with butterflies, creating a striking natural spectacle. Curiously, these butterflies mostly fly against the wind, heading towards the sea and seemingly aiming for Africa, despite no nearby islands. It's an annual phenomenon that remains a mystery to me... a butterfly on an endless journey.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoFor some butterflies the migration takes a few generations
- evadk8 2y agowind, is that that hard to guess?
- toss1 2y agoIt's one thing to guess, or conjucture a hypothesis. It is another thing to track down all the data, do all the calculations, and actually provide confirmation for the hypothes, and put it out there for others to confirm or not-confirm. The former is just a guess in the wind (maybe worth a Tweet - "Check out this odd thing!"); the latter is applying science and is worth an article.
- lfnoise 2y agoHow do they know that the butterflies weren't aboard a ship?
- pvaldes 2y agoBirds often take a ride or stop to rest for a while, but for insects ships are probably too slow to survive without any food.
- fakedang 2y agoHow do we know the butterflies didn't piggyback on a flight?
- ddalex 2y agohave you seen flight prices these days ?
- moomoo11 2y agoI like butterflies and moths
- user070223 2y agoNew world monkey hypothesized to have drifted on a raft from Africa to South America.
- ummonk 2y agoHow do they know the butterflies didn’t, say, hitch a ride on a cruise ship with a flower garden?
- smeej 2y agoOr for that matter, weren't brought intentionally by someone who traveled on a ship with the equivalent of a terrarium or something that would keep them alive that long?
- madaxe_again 2y agoI was about to say, they seem to entirely forget about the existence of ships - humans are pretty good at displacing species around the place.
- Animats 2y agoThere are times when you can cross the Atlantic on wind power without stopping. In 2016, Stan Honey, the inventor of car navigation, took a 100-foot sailboat across the Atlantic without tacking, knocking 27 hours off the previous time.[1] They kept the crew on standby until wind conditions were perfect, then set sail. The butterflies were lucky. There must be many others that didn't make it. [1] https://www.yachtingworld.com/special-reports/stan-honey-the-smartest-man-in-yachting-140584 https://www.yachtingworld.com/special-reports/stan-honey-the...
- datameta 2y agoFor anyone interested in pre-GPS nav: https://www.fastcompany.com/3047828/who-needs-gps-the-forgotten-story-of-etaks-amazing-1985-car-navigation-system https://www.fastcompany.com/3047828/who-needs-gps-the-forgot...
- OJFord 2y agoEtak (not exactly that article) discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40047806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40047806
- schiffern 2y ago>The butterflies were lucky. There must be many others that didn't make it. "Nature is prolific. There are many more creatures that are born than can possibly survive." -- Carl Sagan It's a feature, not a bug! (pardon the pun)
- BuyMyBitcoins 2y agoI’m in awe of the tenacity of life. Over a decade ago, a snowy owl made its way to the island of Oahu on its own. Sadly, it had to be killed because it arrived near Honolulu’s international airport and could not captured by animal control. An autopsy revealed that this owl had expended so much energy crossing the pacific that it almost certainly would have died of exhaustion within a few hours of its arrival. But, it still made it. Hawaii has its own species of Owl. Their ancestors must have made a similar journey and had just enough luck to survive and establish a population there. I’m fascinated by this. How did it happen? No owls migrate to Hawaii. Did this one get lost in a storm? Was it sheer luck that this owl picked the right direction while flying over the open ocean to end up finding Oahu? Do some owls just feel an urge to pick a direction and just keep flying? Was this one owl’s magnificent flight the result of some undescribed phenomenon? Perhaps there is some rare instinct which inspires an individual to go on a suicidal journey into the unknown. A species sacrificing an individual to make the gamble that it will end up in some far flung biome and establishing itself there. The flip side of this story is realizing just how many more snowy owls must have ended up over the Pacific Ocean and kept flying until they unceremoniously perished amongst the waves. https://www.civilbeat.org/2012/01/details-emerge-about-snowy-owl-holiday-death/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2012/01/details-emerge-about-snowy...
- ck2 2y agoI learned this weekend that birds routinely get trapped in the eye of hurricanes and have to keep moving with it despite being exhausted, for hundreds of miles.
- brnt 2y agoWow, if you put it like that arduous journeys transporting you to other realms are actually happening!
- GoofballJones 2y agoI mean...where they gonna stop?
- a_gopher 2y agoSo the butterflies flew 2600 miles only to be killed for study by some curious entomologists?
- dyauspitr 2y agoI’ve never personally seen a butterfly glide past a second or two. Are they capable of long distance gliding? The alternative that they’re flapping their wings continuously for weeks on end seems almost unbelievable.
- klyrs 2y agoHow do we know they didn't construct aeroplanes and fly in the comfort of business class? (I know that we're no supposed to sneer at the community but with so many stupid questions it's hard to restrain myself)
- h1fra 2y agoFeels like it's more likely they got trapped in a plane, ship, box and got there unwillingly. I'm surprised as a scientist you can get to this conclusion
- jjulius 2y agoI'm surprised that one can feel okay with completely dismissing scientific observations on the basis of "feels like".
- h1fra 2y agoThey explicitly say "this method is not perfect and still hinges primarily on educated guesswork". So why are they dismissing a completely possible explanation? At least they should mention that's it's a possibility
- jjulius 2y agoYou mean like how the actual paper linked in the article identified that as a common form of transportation?
- beardedwizard 2y agoYou should consider reading the article where the evidence against this is explicitly discussed in detail.
- h1fra 2y agoI have read it, I don't see any mention of that in the article.
- beardedwizard 2y agoI think you have to read more carefully next time: "To figure out how the painted ladies ended up in French Guiana, researchers approached the question from many angles. They looked at weather data for the weeks leading up to the butterflies’ arrival and saw that wind conditions could have supported a voyage from Africa to South America. They also sequenced the butterflies’ genomes and learned that they were relatives of insects from Africa and Europe, which helped them rule out the possibility that the migrants had flown from North America. In addition, they analyzed isotopes in the butterflies’ wings, which can point to their area of origin—this suggested they were born in western Europe and western Africa. Providing yet another line of evidence, the team sequenced the DNA of pollen grains stuck to the butterflies’ bodies. This allowed them to identify the plants the creatures had recently visited—Guiera senegalensis and Ziziphus spina-christi, two shrub species that only flower at the end of West Africa’s rainy season."
- phendrenad2 2y agoThey probably rest on the ocean thanks to surface tension.
- gfxxxx 2y agoIts not obvious (to me) that they need to rest. They're small enough not to need it. The energy to fly those distances, however...
- zarmin 2y agoand boy are my arms tired
- marsupialtail_2 2y agoButterfly flies 2600 miles across the ocean just to be caught by a human in a jar to be DNA sequenced ...
- froglets 2y agoI just ordered this same type of butterfly for my kid to hatch at home. I’m not sure where they are shipping from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a non native variety being sold.
- dw_arthur 2y agoIt's rather shocking that they stayed together over such a long journey that included no stops. I tend to agree with the other commentators that they didn't fly the whole way to South America.
- blindriver 2y agoHow much energy do they expend and how can they do it when there's no food sources for them?
- karmsingh 2y agoThis is incredible, would love to see a breakdown of the fat store and energy these butterflies would have required to make a 5-8 day journey. Seem impossible feat of nature, how do they stay awake and navigate!? So many unanswered questions.
- joeevans1000 2y agoThey flew the Atlantic. 2600 miles. Somehow stayed together. Ten at least made it, as a group, with tattered wings. To have it all ended by an entomologist wondering how they got there.
- man2550 2y agoDid they actually fly? Or lean on the wind? Because recently there has been news of spiders flying.. not really flying but traveling through the air via wind
- Yakub-AlEspunj 2y agoI'm fascinated by the idea that a group of butterflies made it across the Atlantic without stopping. It's not hard to imagine a butterfly that's been blown off course by a hurricane ending up on a distant shore. Maybe these butterflies are like the cockroaches of the insect world - they can survive anywhere.
- fillskills 2y agoHow is this possible? I cant even walk 10 miles without needing food. Where did the butterflies store their energy? So many questions... Amazing if true.
- whazor 2y agoWell, I certainly hope the butterfly has more energy after eating through one apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries, five oranges, a chocolate cake, an ice-cream, a pickle, a cheese, a salami, a lollipop, a cherry pie, a sausage, a cupcake, a watermelon, and finally a green leaf.
- stwr 2y agoAs a parent of a 2.5yo, this made me laugh :) thank you
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoAs the parent of a 30 year old, it made me smile and think "hmm, what was the name of that book?" :)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ignoramous 2y agoFor the out of loop non-Anglo parents / non-parents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Hungry_Caterpillar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Hungry_Caterpillar
- frutiger 2y ago> …parents… Hey, we were all kids once!
- 2y ago
- pm2222 2y agoSummary: under the right condition like wind butterflies fly a long way.