Stephen W. Paddock - Digital Image Gallery
Fruit Fly on Butterfly Wing
The colorful scales attached to the butterfly's wings often form beautiful patterns and large, colored spots. These spots serve as an effective survival mechanism in that they make the butterfly appear larger than its actual size to a potential predator by mimicking the eyes of a much larger creature. The digital image presented below features a Drosophila (fruit fly) resting near the eyespot on a butterfly wing.
Eyespots on the butterfly wing mimic larger eyes that often can defer predators to other prey. Common predators of the butterfly are spiders, baldfaced hornets, and birds, while fruit flies typically fall prey to spiders, ants, and beetles, not to mention specially designed fly traps and quick-handed humans.
