Capacity for heat absorption by the wings of the butterfly Tirumala limniace (Cramer)
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Biophysics, Entomology
- Keywords
- heat absorption, heat storage, heat absorption area, heat transfer, wing, Tirumala limniace
- Copyright
- © 2019 Liao et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Capacity for heat absorption by the wings of the butterfly Tirumala limniace (Cramer) PeerJ Preprints 7:e27200v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27200v2
Abstract
Butterflies can directly absorb heat from the sun via their wings to facilitate autonomous flight. However, how is the heat absorbed by the butterfly from sunlight stored and transmitted in the wing? The answer to this scientific question remains unclear. The butterfly Tirumala limniace (Cramer) is a typical heat absorption insect, and its wing surface color is only composed of light and dark color. Thus, in this study, we measured a number of wing traits relevant for heat absorption including the thoracic temperature at different light intensities and wing opening angles, the thoracic temperature of butterflies with only one right fore wing or one right hind wing, the spectral reflectance of the wing surfaces, the thoracic temperature of butterflies with the scales removed or not in light or dark areas, and the real-time changes in heat absorption by the wing surfaces with temperature. High intensity light (600–60000 lx) allowed the butterflies to absorb more heat and 60−90° was the optimal angle for heat absorption. The heat absorption capacity was stronger in the fore wings than the hind wings. Dark areas on the wing surfaces were heat absorption areas. The dark areas in the lower region of the fore wing surface and the inside region of the hind wing surface were heat storage areas. Heat was transferred from the heat storage areas to the wing base through the veins near the heat storage areas of the fore and hind wings.
Author Comment
This is the latest research on the heat absorption of butterfly wings.The butterfly is a very clever animal, by using the solar heat to carry on the autonomous flight, reduces the flight to own energy consumption.