NATURE NOTES – Number 51 August 28, 2022
Introduction:
Sometimes it’s interesting to look at how complex and entangled nature is. We often look at a bird, or a plant, and don’t go much farther into its overall place in nature other than what it looks like. But as we learn more about an animal or plant, pieces start to fall into place that gives a much deeper picture of nature. And it usually makes sense once we understand it. So in this NATURE NOTE we are going to look at:
Our current topic: Butterflies, moths, bats and stealth bombers
Ok, stealth bombers are a little out of place here, but stick with me.
Most of us are somewhat familiar with butterflies and moths, insects that belong to the Lepidoptera order. They both feed on the nectar of flowering plants and are important pollinators. If you look at their coloring, butterflies are usually brightly colored and moths are darker, duller and kind of “blah” colored. Like most everything in nature, there are exceptions to this. As there are for most things in nature, there is a reason for this color difference; a complex, and interesting reason. Let’s look at it. Let’s start with the shifts these pollinators work. Butterflies work the day shift, moving from flower to flower to sample the nectar. Moths do the same work but generally they work the night shift. Therefore, they need to sleep during the day and hope they don’t get eaten by some hungry bird prowling the branches. Their dark and duller color gives them camouflage against being found by these predators. The colorful butterflies don’t need to worry when they sleep, as most birds are not active at night. Also, many butterflies have a built-in toxin that birds are aware of and will cause them to avoid having a butterfly for lunch. But the moths are not yet out of the woods – so to speak. They need to be concerned by the night hunters: bats! Now bats don’t rely on sight to find their food, but a complicated system of sound waves being transmitted and received to identify their surroundings, including their late night meal. Think of it as sort of a radar or sonar system. Our modern military aircraft, called stealth aircraft, are specialty built to confuse or deflect the transmitted enemy frequencies and avoid detection. Nature has done a similar thing with moths. Closely compare a moth with a butterfly. The antennae of the moth are wide and brushy, like a fern leaf. The butterfly has long, slender antennae. The moth wings, like butterflies, are made up of tiny scales, but the moth’s scales are very fuzzy. Both of these body characteristics make the moths more “furry” and therefore help confuse the bat’s radar and help protect the night-feeding moths.
Nature has used toxins, color pattern, anatomy, and other things to protect these insects from their predators. While these protections don’t work 100% of the time, it gives these valuable insects a much better chance of doing their job in the complicated web of nature. As John Muir said: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything else in the universe.”
Opportunities:
Again, this is just an effort to give you, an adult, background to use in discussing nature with scouts. You don’t need to be an expert. Maybe just giving the scouts something to think about – like the difference between moths and butterflies – will create some curiosity in their developing brains to start thinking more about the inter-workings of nature. The part about the stealth bomber might just be an attention getter, but if it works, good. Many of these NATURE NOTES are not in great detail, but that’s ok. Use them to get your scouts to think and wonder about nature. And just maybe you will learn something too that will make you dig a little deeper into a subject of interest. Go for it!
Give me your thoughts. I hope you are getting something from these notes. Let me know at
Bob Garst
