[HN Gopher] Butterflies flew 2,600 miles across the Atlantic wit...
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Butterflies flew 2,600 miles across the Atlantic without stopping
Author : raybb
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-06-28 16:57 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| fillskills wrote:
| How is this possible? I cant even walk 10 miles without needing
| food. Where did the butterflies store their energy? So many
| questions...
|
| Amazing if true.
| hulitu wrote:
| > How is this possible?
|
| Wind ?
| blast wrote:
| From the article: "We estimate that without wind, the
| butterflies could have flown a maximum of 780 km [485 miles]
| before consuming all their fat and, therefore, their energy."
|
| So they can fly 485 miles without wind? that is still an
| unbelievably long way!
| vhayda wrote:
| Amazing!!! But, jee, think of all the butterflies and other
| insects picked up by the wind that didn't make it
| bsimpson wrote:
| It's about San Francisco to San Diego, or the length of
| Italy (Venice to Bari, where the "heel of the boot"
| starts).
| hanniabu wrote:
| They're more efficient than bicycles
| szundi wrote:
| They should ride the bike then!
| brnt wrote:
| Don't let Leary read this: he'd start underfueling his jets
| on flight going with the wind.
| bamboozled wrote:
| That is some amazing freaking efficiency right there.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Just two words to add to this theme:
|
| Pantala flavescens
| fsckboy wrote:
| > Pantala flavescens wikipedia: _Globe skimmers make an
| annual multigenerational journey of some 18,000 km (about
| 11,200 miles); to complete the migration, individual globe
| skimmers fly more than 6,000 km (3,730 miles)--one of the
| farthest known migrations of all insect species._
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Wow!!!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantala_flavescens
| whazor wrote:
| Well, I certainly hope the butterfly has more energy after
| eating through one apple, two pears, three plums, four
| strawberries, five oranges, a chocolate cake, an ice-cream, a
| pickle, a cheese, a salami, a lollipop, a cherry pie, a
| sausage, a cupcake, a watermelon, and finally a green leaf.
| stwr wrote:
| As a parent of a 2.5yo, this made me laugh :) thank you
| ignoramous wrote:
| For the out of loop non-Anglo parents / non-parents:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Hungry_Caterpillar
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Not just for Anglos! I have it in Russian and Dutch too.
|
| From your link: "... translated into more than 60 languages
| ..."
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >"How is this possible? I cant even walk 10 miles without
| needing food. Where did the butterflies store their energy?"
|
| Air is a very different substance at that size scale. It is
| quite thick and viscous. It would be more accurate to say that
| the butterflies _floated_ across the Atlantic. Locust hordes do
| the same, and can travel thousands of miles via the jet stream.
| They are not flapping their wings to maintain thrust the entire
| way.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| Try walking further: calculate a loop of slightly longer than
| that and go for it.
|
| I've had a lot of fun doing exactly this as exercise in the
| last few years - picking incrementally longer "loops" of
| distance and just fucking going for it with a bunch of water or
| Gatorade equivalents :)
|
| Caveat: may become addictive.
| pm2222 wrote:
| Summary: under the right condition like wind butterflies fly a
| long way.
| guiporto wrote:
| I live in a city in northeastern Brazil where the prevailing
| winds blow from the sea to the land. From March to May, the air
| is filled with butterflies, creating a striking natural
| spectacle. Curiously, these butterflies mostly fly against the
| wind, heading towards the sea and seemingly aiming for Africa,
| despite no nearby islands. It's an annual phenomenon that remains
| a mystery to me... a butterfly on an endless journey.
| evadk8 wrote:
| wind, is that that hard to guess?
| toss1 wrote:
| It's one thing to guess, or conjucture a hypothesis.
|
| It is another thing to track down all the data, do all the
| calculations, and actually provide confirmation for the
| hypothes, and put it out there for others to confirm or not-
| confirm.
|
| The former is just a guess in the wind (maybe worth a Tweet -
| "Check out this odd thing!"); the latter is applying science
| and is worth an article.
| treeFall wrote:
| How do we know they didn't land on ocean debris?
| lfnoise wrote:
| How do they know that the butterflies weren't aboard a ship?
| fakedang wrote:
| How do we know the butterflies didn't piggyback on a flight?
| ddalex wrote:
| have you seen flight prices these days ?
| moomoo11 wrote:
| I like butterflies and moths
| user070223 wrote:
| New world monkey hypothesized to have drifted on a raft from
| Africa to South America.
| ummonk wrote:
| How do they know the butterflies didn't, say, hitch a ride on a
| cruise ship with a flower garden?
| smeej wrote:
| Or for that matter, weren't brought intentionally by someone
| who traveled on a ship with the equivalent of a terrarium or
| something that would keep them alive that long?
| taylorius wrote:
| Or nestled in a flowery hat work by someone on a trans-
| atlantic flight? SO many holes in this story... :-)
| tomcam wrote:
| It's flowery hats all the way down
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I was about to say, they seem to entirely forget about the
| existence of ships - humans are pretty good at displacing
| species around the place.
| Animats wrote:
| There are times when you can cross the Atlantic on wind power
| without stopping. In 2016, Stan Honey, the inventor of car
| navigation, took a 100-foot sailboat across the Atlantic without
| tacking, knocking 27 hours off the previous time.[1] They kept
| the crew on standby until wind conditions were perfect, then set
| sail.
|
| The butterflies were lucky. There must be many others that didn't
| make it.
|
| [1] https://www.yachtingworld.com/special-reports/stan-honey-
| the...
| ck2 wrote:
| I learned this weekend that birds routinely get trapped in the
| eye of hurricanes and have to keep moving with it despite being
| exhausted, for hundreds of miles.
| brnt wrote:
| Wow, if you put it like that arduous journeys transporting you
| to other realms are actually happening!
| GoofballJones wrote:
| I mean...where they gonna stop?
| a_gopher wrote:
| So the butterflies flew 2600 miles only to be killed for study by
| some curious entomologists?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I've never personally seen a butterfly glide past a second or
| two. Are they capable of long distance gliding? The alternative
| that they're flapping their wings continuously for weeks on end
| seems almost unbelievable.
| klyrs wrote:
| How do we know they didn't construct aeroplanes and fly in the
| comfort of business class? (I know that we're no supposed to
| sneer at the community but with so many stupid questions it's
| hard to restrain myself)
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(page generated 2024-06-30 23:00 UTC)