BUTTERFLIES THAT HAVE A
KNOWLEDGE OF PHYS ICS
The appearance of butterflies is admirable. These creatures, which with
their colorful wings and elegant flight are like living ornaments, are some
of the sources of beauty that Allah creates for us. However, a marvelous ap-
pearance is certainly not the only feature of butterflies. These short-lived
creatures sometimes do calculations such as a specialist would do. For ex-
ample, like the moths which we discussed earlier, the body heat of a but-
terfly has to be at a certain temperature in order for it to fly. Let's see what
butterflies do to solve this problem.
The colias butterfly cannot fly when its body temperature is below
28 o C (83 o F). In such cases the butterfly opens its wings to ex-
pose its upper side to the sun and to soak up the sun's rays at
the correct angle. If its body temperature rises as high as 40 o C
(104 o F), it rotates by 90 degrees and thus receives the sun's rays
horizontally. With this behavior the butterfly absorbs as little heat through
the wings as possible and its body temperature decreases.
Besides that, this butterfly species has small dark spots on its
wings. These spots, the function of which is to
maintain a higher body temperature, are
not located just anywhere. They are
close to the points that most need to be
53
W O N D E R F U L C R E A T U R E S
