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General Information Other Ways of Frightening and Fooling Predators |
Besides camouflage patterns many butterflies and moths have bright, colorful
eyespots on their wings which are hidden when they rest. Being attacked, they
suddenly show these patterns scaring and confusing predators, mainly birds.
Sometimes the predator even flees from the frightening, flashing eyes, in any
case it gives its victim time to escape. In experiments chicken only ate
butterflies when these "eyes" had been cut out of the wings. But these
patterns only give a limited protection. After some time the birds learn that
the eyespots are not dangerous.
Some butterflies have false antennae on the back of their wings. These thin
appendages can be longer than the body. The behavior of these butterflies
enforces the impression of the head on the wrong side. They normally sit with
their back up moving the false antennae while the real ones don’t move. Some
species even walk backwards.
The Hairstreak butterfly turns around as soon as it lands so that its back points to the flight direction. But what is the advantage of this behavior? An attacking bird will consider the back as the front and consequently expect the bird to escape in this direction. So it will pick the butterfly’s back or snap in the supposed direction of escape. But the butterfly will flee exactly in the other direction so the bird will only catch a piece of the less sensitive back or even nothing.
