Many scientists have always wanted to answer the question" How does Monarch Butterfly find their ways during migration"? And the answer turned out to be their antennas. This was known from an experiment where they painted the Monarch antennas with black and record their observations. The result shown that butterflies with antennas painted black did in fact lost their ways, the one that didn't have their antennas painted navigate just fine.
Monarchs also have circadian clock in their brain that act as a time keeper which is extremely important because this will allow them to determine what time it is and the sun position. Monarchs also have a second clock in their antenna to sense light, and this was discovered by Dr. Steven M. Reppert, chairman of neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Reppert insisted that by having a better understanding about how their brain works also give us better knowledge of our own brain.
So, Monarch antennas are critical for their navigation, but what about their vision and smell? To answer this question, researchers performed another experiment where they painted the antennas with black and clear paints. The one that had black paint on their antennas obviously got lost while the one with clear paint were normal. What they learned from this experiment was that not only the antennas are light sensitives, but sense of smell isn’t important in helping the monarch find their way because both the black and clear paint blocked their sense of smell. Surprisingly, researchers also found that butterflies that had their antenna painted black weren’t able to navigate their way even though they can see with their eyes. This important finding helped the researchers determined antennas is more critical when it come to navigation. Butterflies that have their antennas surgically removed can no longer senses direction. Without antennas, butterflies are disoriented.
Tiffany Phan (week 3)
I enjoyed your blog. Are the antennas on the butterflies the only know way that they navigate there migration or just apart of the process? Did the article mention anything about visual communication between butterflies in navigation? It is absolutely amazing that these little creatures can find there way thousands of miles to the same spot by themselves. Is there anything mentioned about the interactions of butterflies during this journey?
ReplyDeleteEmerson Martin
This we interesting that the antennas proved to be more important in navigating than their eyes! I wonder if the antenna play a role in normal vision- not just a sense of direction. Did the butterflies that had their antennas painted black have decreased vision? Or did it solely effect the navigation system of the bug? Do you know if butterflies with a better sense of navigation or larger antennas are more attractive to the opposite sex? Finally, do these bugs travel in groups or are they left to navigate alone? This was a very interesting article how the butterflies have an internal sense of direction when we need electronic devices to help us humans!
ReplyDeletePosted by Tiffany Mallet