Monarch butterflies have scaly wings that make them fly, which made aerospace engineer think is another efficient way to reach the skies. This is a new discovery reported by these engineers it during a yearly meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Jan. 7.
In an article published by Science Mag, the tiny scaled wings of monarch butterflies have caught the attention of aerospace engineers, thinking it could help in flying. These scales, which are estimated to be 0.1 millimeters long, look like roof shingles attached on a monarch butterfly's wings.
Having those scales as part of their wings make it look rough and apparently, those have a lot to do with the way they fly. Some engineers were curious about the scaly wings of these insects that they decided to take a video of 11 monarch butterflies who are free-flying in the air.
They made a record of their flight first with their scales and then another one without them. They did it in an exclusively confined area using 22 cameras for monitoring these beautiful insects while they flap their wings in a precision that can be in submillimeter.
These engineers discovered that the scales contributed a lot to their flight by about 16% up to 82%. Monarch butterflies without the scales were still able to fly, but not as fast and as broad as the ones with their scales on. Researchers then thought of attaching artificially scaled wings to the scaleless ones and confirmed that the scales indeed have a huge effect on their flight's efficiency that they were more able to go higher.
Hopefully, this results in something new in the industry of aeronautics. Meanwhile, Michigan State University reported that these butterflies decline in number over the years whenever they do their annual migratory flights. Smart gardening is encouraged by experts for their population not to decrease.