In October 2013, a discovery was made on the painted lady butterflies that travelled 2,600 miles to the French Guiana beach. These butterflies are not found in South America despite being a widespread butterflies species.
These butterflies are identified from their orange and brown wings adorned with black and white spots. When they were found lying on the beach with their wings tattered and filled with holes.
This discovery made by scientists is the first evidence of insects crossing an entire ocean, doing a long journey. The investigation took long but the findings did shock researchers. Due to the collaborative efforts they got to know that the insects took a long flight to be there.
On Tuesday (June 25) in the journal Nature Communications, these findings are published by the researchers. During the research, several findings came out. This species was closely related to populations in North America, Europe and Africa.
These insects are known to be champions in long-distance travel, due to their long flights between Europe to Africa migrating up to 9,000 miles (14,500 km) and a flight of the Sahara.
But this North American trip is speculated to be completed by taking a night's rest and refuelling. To reach French Guiana might have taken up to eight days. Since following the long journey taken by the insects is harder to track. Scientists through their calculative guesses and observation done by the spotters managed to track the travel patterns.
To gain deeper insight into this long-distance migration, the scientists studied wind currents originating from the Sahara, which carry dust from Africa to the Americas. They discovered that the butterflies used a combination of active flying and autopilot strategies. They didn’t stop during their journey, covering vast distances.
To support these findings a doctorate student at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, and study co-author Eric Toro-Delgado said in his statement "The butterflies could only have completed this flight using a strategy alternating between the minimal effort to avoid falling into the sea, facilitated by ascending winds, and active flight, which requires more energy consumption," adding further in his statement he said, "We estimate that without wind, the butterflies could have flown a maximum of 780 km [485 miles] before exhausting all their fat and thus their energy."
The finding highlights that these tiny butterflies with beauty and fragility can coexist with incredible feats of endurance, and carry the ability to take a long journey.
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