Butterfly puzzle
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Ornithoptera alexandrae: Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly: Male
Have you ever wondered why butterflies like this Queen Alexandra Bridwing are so beautiful? The colours on butterfly wings are created by many thousands of individual scales that cover the wings and are layered like tiles on a house roof. Most of the colours are formed by different pigments inside these scales but sometimes it's the shape of the scales themselves causing the metallic colours. The reason for these gorgeous colous range from attracting mates to camouflage that make them look like a leaf or a piece of bark. Some butterflies even use startle or warning colours that confuse a predator! Amazingly these wing scales can reflect heat onto the body of the butterfly to help with flight.