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

[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?