Showing posts with label clutch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clutch. Show all posts

Friday, January 7, 2011

Edith's checkerspot butterfly laying her eggs while paying no attention to gravity

From the video's description: Some butterflies of this species lay eggs near the top of the plant and some lay near the base. This is the first of a pair of clips to illustrate the difference. The butterfly is gently led onto the plant (a Collinsia) by hand. She then behaves as though she had naturally alighted on the plant. The first part of the clip is in slow-motion so that you can see the butterfly tasting the plant with her atrophied forelegs (that are not used in walking). If the taste is acceptable (as it is in this case) she curls her abdomen and the brown ovipositor (the tube through whcgh eggs are laid) appears. The insect feels the underside of a leaf, and then, if the leaf is acceptable to touch, eggs are laid. At this point the clip shifts out of slow-motion an then to faster than normal. The NEXT video shows a different butterfly of the same species treating a plant very differently.

Edith's checkerspot butterfly paying attention to gravity?

From the video's description: This clip shows a butterfly led gently onto a Collinsia plant and tasting the plant, finding the taste acceptable, curling her abdomen & extruding her ovipositor, just as in the first clip. But, having done this, instead of just feeling the underside of a leaf and laying her eggs there, she tumbles down the plant, apparently loses it for a few moments, then refinds it, tastes the base and searches for the lowest part of the plant under which she can lay her eggs. the clip then fasts-forward till the insect naturally completes her egg clutch, then a human appears to show you the eggs.