Articles

Article	Summary
*Well-equipped travelers: Monarch butterflies and their sun compass machinery* - Umass Medical School 1/26/11	Steven Reppert, MD is recognized as a pioneer in the effort to understand the monarch butterfly’s spectacular annual mass migration from eastern North America to central Mexico
*Gender-bending butterflies observed in Yale study* by Kristofor Husted - Medill Reports 1/14/11	If you’re a male butterfly looking to mate, locate the females raised in cooler temperatures and you can sit back and let them woo you. Yale University researchers identified this gender reversal behavior in a strain of the Bicyclus anynana, a butterfly found in Malawi. This is the first species where role reversal has been observed
*Butterfly Wings Offer Guiding Light for Nanotech Innovation* by Mike Martin - TechNewsWorld 1/25/11	The Morpho butterfly's highly evolved wings are so unique that scientists at Simon Fraser University (SFU) have teamed up with NanoTech Security to reproduce their iridescent blue coloring for a new anti-counterfeiting technology.
*A butterfly predator on cotton mealy bugs* by A. Suganthi et al - The Hindu (India) 11/12/09	Spalgis epius, commonly called as blue butterflies, feed on diverse unrelated foods such as plants, fungi, lichens, cycads, ferns, conifers, homopterans (mealybugs, scale insects, aphids, etc.) and larvae of ants.
*CU group sending butterflies to space* by Peter Budoff - Daily Camera (Boulder, CO) 11/10/09	When the space shuttle Atlantis begins its journey for the International Space Station on Monday, it will have on board two butterfly habitats, which will be part of an experiment conducted by the University of Colorado and K-12 students across the country.
*£3.2m ($5.4 million) research project to capture brilliance of butterfly wings* by Sarah Hoyle - University of Exeter 11/9/09	Over the next three years a team of physicists from the University of Exeter and QinetiQ will work together to develop new technologies, based on their discoveries in the field of tailored electromagnetic materials – made by studying the wings of butterflies.
*Butterfly Shows Speciation Signs* by Cynthia Graber - Scientific American 11/9/09	A study in the journal Science looks at Heliconius butterflies in Ecuador, in which a single gene change that influences mate choice may be the first step in the splitting of the population into two species.
*Polymorphic Butterfly Reveals the Missing Link in Ecological Speciation* by Nicola L. Chamberlain et al - Science Magazine 11/6/09	Ecological speciation occurs when ecologically based, divergent selection causes the evolution of reproductive isolation.
*Hearing On The Wing: New Structure Discovered In Butterfly Ears* - ScienceDaily 10/22/09	A clever structure in the ear of a tropical butterfly that potentially makes it able to distinguish between high and low pitch sounds has been discovered by scientists from the University of Bristol. The team believes that the remarkable structure may be associated with the detection of predators, in particular birds.
*Panama butterfly migrations linked to El Niño, climate change* by Beth King - Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute 10/5/09	"Our long-term study shows that El Niño, a global climate pattern, drives Sulfur butterfly migrations," said Robert Srygley, former Smithsonian post doctoral fellow who is now a research ecologist at the US Agricultural Research Service, the chief scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
*Nebraska man helps butterfly migration* by Trisha Schulz - World-Herald News Service 10/4/09	From mid-August through October, it's monarch madness for Eugene Young of Plainview, Neb. Young volunteers as part of the University of Kansas' Monarch Watch, tagging hundreds of butterflies as the distinctive insects flit through the Midwest on their way to central Mexico to roost for the winter.
*DaVinci students tag butterflies, tracking their progress on migratory route* by Trent Toone - Standard-Examiner (Ogden, Utah) 10/2/09	The students, ranging from sophomores to seniors at DaVinci Academy of Science and the Arts, tagged little stickers on the beautiful wings of monarch butterflies, then set them free in hopes that the colorful insects would reach Southern California. The DaVinci students hope students at partnering schools in Southern California will find the tagged butterflies so their migratory progress and data can be tracked and recorded.
*Lakeshore among 25 most endangered parks* by Deborah Sederberg - The News-Dispatch 10/3/09	MICHIGAN CITY - A tiny blue butterfly about the size of a quarter may be a local harbinger of the threat of warmer climes to come - or maybe not.
*NorCal Amusement Park Makes Scientific Discovery* by Nancy Chan - CBS13 10/2/09	Life is good at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo for at least one of the park's residents...the blue-banded purple butterfly. The amusement park says at least four of the butterflies have reached the ripe old age of one year. The average age of a butterfly is generally two weeks.
*Butterfly mystery* by BRIAN NEARING - Times Union, Albany, NY 10/1/09	It's been 17 years since the tiny Karner blue butterfly, a resident and symbol of rare inland pine barrens in the Capital Region, went on the federal endangered species list. Now, despite years of efforts to save the butterflies, including the creation of a 3,000-acre preserve in Albany County to protect their habitat, their numbers continue to dwindle.
*Butterfly GPS (Photos, Diagram) Migration Secrets* by Gene Byrd - The National Ledger 9/28/09	GPS has saved many drivers from getting lost - does a butterfly have a built in GPS system? Scientists have finally located the 24-hour clock that guides the migration of monarch butterflies. According to an Associated Press Science report, "Antenna sensors turn out to be key to Monarch butterflies finding their way to Mexico."
*Where the Monarchs Hang in Mexico* by Silvia Uribe - Santa Barbara Independent 9/27/09	Here in Goleta, as most know, we have a monarch sanctuary, officially known as the Coronado Butterfly Preserve, on the Ellwood Mesa, close to the bluffs.
*Butterfly antennas key to navigating in migration* by RANDOLPH E. SCHMID - AP 9/24/09	Millions of Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico for the winter and scientists have long speculated on how the insects find their way. Turns out, their antennas are the key. How do we know? Well, researchers painted butterfly antennas black, and the insects got lost
*Monarch migration underway* by Theresa Friday - Santa Rosa Gazette September 29, 2009	Every fall, a magical event takes place in the animal world. A small, yet amazing, creature may be traveling over your own head right now or visiting your backyard on a mystical journey home. The annual monarch butterfly migration to Mexico is underway
*UGA researcher discovers change in butterfly ratios* by JUSTIN CREWS - redandblack.com 9/30/09	Andy Davis - a doctoral candidate in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources - discovered that female to male ratios for Monarch butterflies east of the Rocky Mountains have been gradually changing in favor of the males.
*British butterfly’s comeback gives hope for threatened species* - University of York News and Events 25 February 2009	New research shows the importance of habitat conservation in helping threatened species to survive environmental change.
*Young Butterflies Trick Ants Into Raising Them* - Discovery Channel Feb. 4, 2009	Flitting across your yard, butterflies seem friendly and harmless. But at least one type has learned to raise its young as parasites, tricking ants into feeding it and giving special treatment.
*It's In His Smell: Female Moths Can Discern Male's Ancestry, Age And Possibly Reproductive Fitness From His Smell* - ScienceDaily Mar. 9, 2009	A female moth selects a mate based on the scent of his pheromones.
*Butterflies Across Europe Face Crisis As Climate Change Looms* - ScienceDaily Jan. 28, 2009	Climate change will cause Europe to lose much of its biodiversity as projected by a comprehensive study on future butterfly distribution.
*British Butterfly Reveals Role Of Habitat For Species Responding To Climate Change* - ScienceDaily Mar. 9, 2009	Most wild species are expected to colonise northwards as the climate warms, but how are they going to get there when so many landscapes are covered in wheat fields and other crops?
*Natural Solar Collectors On Butterfly Wings Inspire More Powerful Solar Cells* - ScienceDaily Feb. 5, 2009	The discovery that butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar collectors has led scientists in China and Japan to design a more efficient solar cell that could be used for powering homes, businesses, and other applications in the future.
*Butterfly Found To Be New Species, Because Of Its Mustache* - ScienceDaily Mar. 2, 2009	A new butterfly species from the dry Magdalena valleys of Colombia has been discovered among the three million butterfly specimens at the Natural History Museum in London by a butterfly curator.
*Hind Wings Help Butterflies Make Swift Turns To Evade Predators, Study Finds* - ScienceDaily Jan 12 2009	New tires allow race cars to take tight turns at high speeds. Hind wings give moths and butterflies similar advantages: They are not necessary for basic flight but help these creatures take tight turns to evade predators.
*Can Moths Or Butterflies Remember What They Learned As Caterpillars?* - ScienceDaily Mar. 8, 2008	Scientists at Georgetown University recently discovered that a moth can indeed remember what it learned as a caterpillar.
*Pigmentation In Some Butterfly Wings Created By Nanostructures* - ScienceDaily January 22, 2008	Nowhere in nature is there so much beautiful colour as on the wings of butterflies. Scientists, however, are still baffled about exactly how these colours are created.
*Distribution Of A Species Of Butterfly Predicted Using Geometric Variables* - ScienceDaily July 18, 2008	Biologists have recently explored the distribution of the butterfly Iolana iolas, one of the endangered species in the Madrid region whose population dynamics are determined by its host plant.
*Web-spinning Spiders And 'Wannabe Butterflies' Head To Space Shuttle* - ScienceDaily November 11, 2008	The experiment will chart the life cycle of butterflies in the low gravity of space -- from larvae to pupa to butterfly to egg -- and compare it with that of earthbound butterflies
*Masters Of Disguise: Secrets Of Nature's 'Great Pretenders' Revealed* - ScienceDaily Feb. 26, 2008	The mocker swallowtail butterfly, Papilio dardanus, is unusual because it emerges from its chrysalis with one of a large number of different possible wing patterns and colors.
*Mutualism by Natural Selection: Imitation is Not Just Flattery for Amazon Butterfly Species* - ScienceDaily Dec. 8, 2008	A new article considers an aspect of the natural world that, like survival of the fittest individual, is explained by natural selection: namely, mutualism -- an interaction between species that has benefits for both.
*Brown Argus Butterfly Sees Positive Effects of Climate Change* - ScienceDaily June 9, 2008	Global warming is generally thought to have a negative affect on the habitats of many animals and plants. Not for the Brown Argus butterfly, however. This insect seems to be bucking the trend and expanding its numbers quicker and more effectively, according to new research.