Page 64 - Wonderful Creatures: Children! Have You Ever Thought ?

WONDERFUL CREATURES

BUTTERFLIES

THAT HAVE A

KNOWLEDGE OF PHYSICS

The appearance of butterflies is admirable. These crea-

tures, which with their colorful wings and elegant flight are like living
ornaments, are some of the sources of beauty that Allah creates for

us. However, a marvelous appearance is certainly not the only fea-
ture of butterflies. These short-lived creatures sometimes do calcu-

lations such as a specialist would do. For example, like the moths
which we discussed earlier, the body heat of a butterfly has to be at

a certain temperature in order for it to fly. Let's see what
butterflies do to solve this problem.

The colias butterfly cannot fly when its body tem-

perature is below 28oC (83oF). In such cases the
butterfly opens its wings to expose its upper

side to the sun and to soak up the sun's rays
at the correct angle. If its body temperature

rises as high as 40oC (104oF), it rotates by
90 degrees and thus receives the sun's

rays horizontally. With this beha-

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