The most beautiful flying creature imo, they fly almost effortlessly.
I often work remotely in the nature, standing hours in front of my laptop, and sometimes a butterfly or a dragonfly lands on my arm or shoulder, and stays a while. When you think about it, it's probably the safest place for them, since their predators (lizards, ..) don't come close to humans
mistrial9 18 hours ago [-]
Those two, butterfly and dragonfly, could hardly be more different - sort of humorous to put those two creatures in the same thought. Dragonfly is the most accurate predator in the whole animal kingdom.. making falcons and large cats look like beginners. Meanwhile the butterfly is unable to hunt at all, a truly powerful "changeling", starting life as a worm-like thing.
bch 9 hours ago [-]
> starting life as a worm-like thing.
Not that different from a dragon fly[0], really. Most insects go through distinct metamorphosis[1]: egg -> larva -> pupae -> adult.
I might stand corrected - my own citation lists dragonflies as incomplete metamorphosis. I guess it’s true that they don’t pupate, but I thought the juvenile was still striking enough to mention as not necessarily obviously a dragonfly.
11235813213455 5 hours ago [-]
They're indeed super efficient, protein eater vs sugar eater, both are excellent at flying but butterflies are more spectacular, artistic, dragonflies more robotic
ryanmcbride 17 hours ago [-]
sure but they're both cool bugs so they belong together imo
jethkl 18 hours ago [-]
I thought the article would discuss physics of flight, but it's about physics of iridescence. Cool, but not what I expected. I've seen butterflies fly in a stiff wind. It seems impossible even when you watch it. I was hoping for some insight into that.
The interior of my 3d printed parts has that exact gyroid pattern by the way. They put that in SuperSlicer, and presumably in PrusaSlicer, because it is really easy to print by running wiggly lines along x and y direction. Works great.
awinter-py 15 hours ago [-]
the world is a vampire
Rendered at 13:51:18 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
https://www.emilydamstra.com/please-enough-dead-butterflies/
Not that different from a dragon fly[0], really. Most insects go through distinct metamorphosis[1]: egg -> larva -> pupae -> adult.
[0] https://media.australian.museum/media/dd/images/Some_image.w...
[1] https://www.amentsoc.org/insects/fact-files/life-cycles.html
Study mentioned: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2020.085...