Why is touching a butterflies wings bad? What is the “dust” on their wings that makes them fly?
In: Biology
The dust is tiny scales that cover the wings. The scales help reinforce the wing, so when they are lost the wing becomes susceptible to damage.
It’s bad to touch them because the butterfly cannot regrow the scales. Once they are gone, the wing is permanently weaker.
Butterfly wings have tiny, overlapping scales covering them. These are colorful while also protecting the wings and guiding how air flows over them. It might also aid in temperature control, soaking up sunlight to warm them.
You shouldn’t touch butterfly wings because they are very delicate and could easily be damaged. The scales on the wings can easily find loose if touched, which can aid in escaping a predator but sacrifices their benefits.
For why it is bad, because they’re very fragile.
And for what the “dust” is, it isn’t dust, they’re very tiny tiny tiny little scales that make up part of the structure of their wings.
If too many of these scales are rubbed off by people touching them, it can make the wing weaker and more likely to tear/crumple. If that happens, the butterfly can no longer fly, and in the wild will probably die.
If a butterfly lands on you, you can very gently touch/hold them, but avoiding touching the wings is a good idea, really, avoiding touching/poking any part of them is a good idea, because even us being really gentle could accidentally be too much.
The “dust” is made of tiny scales that cover the wing and reflect light to produce the wing’s beautiful colors.
Removal of the scales is like ripping off pieces of metal paneling from an aircraft wing. This will affect how well it flies. Butterflies only get one set of wings that they can’t repair so any damage is permanent.
Butterfly Wings Aren’t as Fragile as They Look
The idea that merely touching a butterfly’s wings may prevent it from flying is more fiction than fact. Although their wings appear fragile, consider the following butterfly flight records as evidence of their strong construction:
The longest documented flight by a migrating monarch butterfly was 2,750 miles, from Grand Manan Island, Canada to the overwintering grounds in Mexico.
Painted lady butterflies are known to fly even farther, covering 4,000 miles from North Africa to Iceland. Researchers studying the flight of this species using high-speed cameras reported that painted ladies flap their wings an astounding 20 times per second.
The Paralasa nepalica, a butterfly found only in Nepal, lives and flies at an altitude of nearly 15,000 feet.
If simple touch could render a butterfly’s wings useless, butterflies could never manage such feats.
ETA – I googled your question and copy/pasted from the first search result. I don’t understand why this was here in the first place, and the fact that it got k___a is evidence of how bloody stupid k___a is. I got k___a for doing something you could have and should have done easily. I am not using the word for fear of bots.
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