Lepidoptera wing scale damage from human-handling

Jan 17, 2018 • 4:39 PM UTC

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ezekieljakub

I am the Director Executivo de Conservación Panamá Inc. I am an Ornithologist by training and a Conservation researcher. The foldscope project we have is to bring science to the communities we work in! We are an Estadounidenses/Panameña ONG focused on conservation research, proyectos, y educación ambiental. www.conservacionpanamaca.org ezekieljakub@conservacionpanamaca.org

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An experiment: We used a roadkill specimen found during our field research here in Panama to show the level of damage a light finger touch to a butterfly wing can cause thus affecting survivability by reduced flight capabilities.
We lightly touched this small section of upperwing with a finger and here you can see the disastrous results.
We use a strictly hands off approach when studying butterflies unless it’ absolutely necessary to handle them. This an illustration why such effort is worth it!

Damage: scale displacement, removal of scale surfaces and whole scale removal