Butterfly question...

[Jennywrenny]

My dad asked an interesting question today.

He was talking about butterflies going into hibernation after seeing a butterfly that was looking a little worse for wear to say the least (ie. it's wings were looking rather tatty).

What he was wondering was whether the wings repaired themselves during hibernation and we just wondered whether anyone here knew the answer?

[speckled wood]

So far as I am aware once damaged a butterfly is unable to repair its wings. Basically once its wings have expanded and dries after emergence from the pupa there is no means that a butterfly can repair damage. Not sure what influence wing damage has on survival chances during hibernation but not doubt the butterflies in the best condition are more likely to survive.

Actually it is quite surprising how migrating butterflies such as the Painted Lady and Red Admiral can still look quite fresh after a long journey and doubtless many autumn butterlies manage to feed up before hibernation and remain fresh looking.

[Lance Morgan]

Speckled wood is right butterflies cannot repair their wings. Only those butterflies that are in good condition will survive a hard winter usually because they are second or even third brood.

[henrya]

Not sure that wing condition affects survival in hibernnation - it's the fattest butterflies that will survive the best, the ones that have the most food reserves (sugar, presumably). Though I have to say that all those I've seen in hibernation have had apparently perfect wings.

henrya

[glsammy]

I've seen some pretty poor peacocks after hibernation; here's an reasonably early example:

[iainstott]

Presumably they can't repair their wings because they drink nectar and so get little if any protein intake. Also, I assumed that most butterflies that hibernate tend to be second brood and so in pretty good nick when they start hibernation - is this generally right?

[Jennywrenny]

Originally Posted by glsammy

I've seen some pretty poor peacocks after hibernation; here's an reasonably early example:

I haven't seen one looking this rough - I imagine it affects their flying with this much damage do you think?

[speckled wood]

It is surprising how well butterflies and other insects can manage with damaged wings, part of the function of the wingss (eye markings) is to draw predators to strike at none vital organs, brown butterflies will often be seen with missing eye spots that have been pecked at by birds.

I have seen bumble bees with at least 25% of their wing area missing yet still able to fly without any obvious difficulty.

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by Jennywrenny

I haven't seen one looking this rough - I imagine it affects their flying with this much damage do you think?

No, not at all. This one was flying very freely with no problems at all. It's the same with dragonflies, I've seen some with almost 1/3 of their wings missing and damaged, but they still fly perfectly well. Speckled Wood is spot on.

[speckled wood]

Perhaps one of the best examples I have seen is a Gatekeeper that had one hind-wing missing yet was still managing to fly, admittingly it flight was rather "fluttering" but it was still managing to get from flower to flower. In my experience certain species do seem really vulnerable to to quite serious wing damage one is the Green-veined White and the other is the Silver-washed Fritillary. I have seen GV Whithes with really badly tattered wings and a large percentage of the SW Frits that I have seen also seem to have lost an outer tip of one of ther fore-wings.

On successful hibernation of species like the Comma, Small Tort and Peacock I think that success is storing body fat is the factor rather than wing damage, in fact possibly the ones that have stayed out longer into the autumn feeding up perhaps getting wing damage in so doing might actually have a better chance of surviving hibernation.