Who I was, covered up in leaves

[sovay]

My mother heard on the radio this afternoon that butterfly fossils prove that the proboscis evolved a full geologic period before flowering plants did.

Me: "So what were they eating with them?"

My mother: "Aha!"

(She's suspecting carrion.)

Comments

[muccamukk]

I feel like I saw the carrion-eating butterflies in at least one episode of Doctor Who. I also like the nosehair tool.

[sovay]

I feel like I saw the carrion-eating butterflies in at least one episode of Doctor Who.

I encountered the idea first in P.C. Hodgell's Kencyrath series, where the strictly carnivorous insects are known as jewel-jaws. They are actually a pretty good metonym for the way that world is full of casually horrifying beautiful things.

I also like the nosehair tool.

Yes! That was a magnificent parenthesis.

possibly not what you wanted to know about my reading comprehension at this hour

[yhlee]

...I misread "Aha!" as "anal" and had this horrifying thought of butterfly, um, sex...

Re: possibly not what you wanted to know about my reading comprehension at this hour

[sovay]

...I misread "Aha!" as "anal" and had this horrifying thought of butterfly, um, sex...

*SNERK*

Re: possibly not what you wanted to know about my reading comprehension at this hour

[yhlee]

...fandom has destroyed my innocence...XD

Re: possibly not what you wanted to know about my reading comprehension at this hour

[thomasyan]

Did you ever read the Queen of Wands webcomic? I think it was two of the characters discovered "vagina dentata" has the same rhythm of hakuna matata, and created a whole song, that's pretty appropriate for at least cabbage white butterflies?

*looks for a link: oh, number 43 on the list* Oh Wow, I don't think I'd seen an actual picture before. Heh, it has the QoW song. (Well, in parts, none of the words need to be changed from the original.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/butterfly-cabbage-white-vagina-dentata/530889/

[nineweaving]

Whoa!

Nine

[sovay]

Whoa!

I love how much deep time there is just in the statement. I started thinking about cycads.

[asakiyume]

I heard this story! Their theory involved nectar that was lying about on conifers, but I prefer scary carnivorous butterflies. Though does eating carrion count as carnivorous?

[sovay]

Though does eating carrion count as carnivorous?

I should think so. You don't have to kill the animal yourself for it to count as meat. (I'd have failed my obligate carnivore roll years ago if that were true.)

[asakiyume]

Haha! Yes, good point.

[thistleingrey]

Fungi also/instead, perhaps?

[sovay]

Fungi also/instead, perhaps?

Oh, interesting. If so, it looks like it still happens!

[aurumcalendula]

Neat! (and apparently there is a variety of things butterflies eat besides nectar )

[sovay]

Neat! (and apparently there is a variety of things butterflies eat besides nectar )

This does not surprise, but really delights me. Thanks for the link!

[thomasyan]

Unrelated, but this reminds me that I recently learned that hummingbirds drink in an unusual way -- item 59 on this list

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/the-science-facts-that-blew-our-minds-in-2017/549122/

(Actually, I'm still a bit confused because I didn't entirely understand the linked article, but I can still tell that it's pretty neat.)

[sovay]

Unrelated, but this reminds me that I recently learned that hummingbirds drink in an unusual way -- item 59 on this list

That is incredibly cool!

"The two tubes also separate from each other, giving the tongue a forked, snakelike appearance. And they unfurl, exposing a row of flaps along their long edges. It's as if the entire tongue blooms open, like the very flowers from which it drinks."

Way more H.R. Giger than I had given hummingbirds credit for.

(Actually, I'm still a bit confused because I didn't entirely understand the linked article, but I can still tell that it's pretty neat.)

The full paper is free to read online and has photographs and diagrams.

[thomasyan]

Thanks, the photographs, diagrams, and movies helped!

[cmcmck]

Now that's a fascinating question! Something truly ancient like horsetails, perhaps?

[sovay]

Something truly ancient like horsetails, perhaps?

See redbird's comment below—you might be right about the horsetails.

Thanks for a cool link

[redbird]

So I did a little googling. The authors of the paper think those proboscises evolved originally to drink water, and some butterflies and moths then started using them partly to get nectar from horsetails. There's also an offhand reference (as to something that people in the field already know) to "increased herbivory" of insects, with specifics about leaf-eating.

Meanwhile, Scientific American also has people saying "maybe not" about significant ancient diversification of Lepidoptera, but it's not clear whether they mean "no, you're trying to get too much from a few fossil scales" or "yes, these three lineages go back to the end of the Triassic, but that doesn't mean there were lots of moths and butterflies flying around the early Jurassic landscape."

Thanks for the additional information!

[sovay]

The authors of the paper think those proboscises evolved originally to drink water, and some butterflies and moths then started using them partly to get nectar from horsetails.

I can see that. I just also see my mother's point that if you need liquid sources of nutrition, salts, minerals, etc., you could do a lot worse than damply decaying animal matter.

Meanwhile, Scientific American also has people saying "maybe not" about significant ancient diversification of Lepidoptera, but it's not clear whether they mean "no, you're trying to get too much from a few fossil scales" or "yes, these three lineages go back to the end of the Triassic, but that doesn't mean there were lots of moths and butterflies flying around the early Jurassic landscape."

Well, since I didn't even know butterfly fossils were a thing before yesterday, I look forward to seeing how the debate evolves.

[thisbluespirit]

Bloodthirsty butterflies definitely sounds familiar (in a SF way, I mean, not in rl). HMm. (I didn't think it was DW, though, but it could have been.)

[sovay]

Bloodthirsty butterflies definitely sounds familiar (in a SF way, I mean, not in rl). HMm.

I've run across them in print, but I would believe they had been parallel-invented by multiple writers: it's such a pretty, horrific image, how could you not?

[thisbluespirit]

True! I wonder what, though? It would be nice to remember. (Or perhaps your mother is right and then it just all race memory of being eaten by butterflies. Perhaps. ;-D)

[tb]

From an on-line guide: "Butterflies can eat anything that can dissolve in water." Anything. So not so much with solid carrion but...

This guide might be "helpful", specifically number 3, the Northern Pearly-eye (and relatives). The little brown woodland butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae all share those habits. Perhaps the carnality that mythological satyrs are associated with is not quite on the mark.

(I was an entomologist in a previous life and ended up not choosing the Little Wood Satyr as my field-study species mostly because it was too cryptic and its food sources too scattered.)

[thanate]

Yes, the modern butterflies that get minerals from mud & bird poop was the first thing I thought of. (Closely followed by the small birds that eat carrion, but that's not proboscis-related.)

[sovay]

Yes, the modern butterflies that get minerals from mud & bird poop was the first thing I thought of.

Maybe it's just the publications, but I feel weirdly as though the paleontology is being too high-minded about this!

[sovay]

From an on-line guide: "Butterflies can eat anything that can dissolve in water." Anything. So not so much with solid carrion but...

If it's broken down enough, it'll dissolve!

The little brown woodland butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae all share those habits. Perhaps the carnality that mythological satyrs are associated with is not quite on the mark.

That's wonderfully said. (And the link is charming.)

(I was an entomologist in a previous life and ended up not choosing the Little Wood Satyr as my field-study species mostly because it was too cryptic and its food sources too scattered.)

What did you choose instead?

[dhampyresa]

FLESH EATING BUTTERFLIES!

[sovay]

FLESH EATING BUTTERFLIES!

I fail to see how this could not be scientifically awesome.