(GENTLE MUSIC) (BIRDSONG) (UPBEAT MUSIC) Butterflies have been fluttering from flower to flower since long before we were here to notice. Yet to our eyes, they appear ephemeral ` a brief and beautiful daydream of a sunlit afternoon. We imbue them with meaning. And what they've come to symbolise most is transformation. Metamorphosis ` the ability to abandon an earthbound body and take to the air on gossamer wings. Squint into a midsummer meadow in bloom. It's as though the flowers can fly. Butterflies lead entangled and complicated lives, full of intimate partnerships and even deception. Who are these incandescent creatures? Captions by Able. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able (BIRDSONG) A butterfly's body is both beautiful and alien. But remarkably, it doesn't start out this way at all. A painted lady, with her bright splashes of orange, lays tiny eggs of a surprising blue. Each egg is attached to a leaf with a special glue that keeps it in place at any angle. They are jewel-like and almost microscopically small. She clusters them on leaves that the babies will be able to eat when they hatch in just five days. And that is the end of her motherly duties. This is how all butterflies begin ` in glowing little capsules perched on something good to eat. And from these tiny orbs, they have conquered the globe and become some 20,000 different species ` thriving in every continent except Antarctica. Our painted lady may be the most cosmopolitan of all. She can be found across Europe, from India to Asia, from North into South America, and all across Africa. Though her own life will be measured in weeks, the anatomy she has inherited has flourished for some 15 million years. (BEE BUZZES) There is a particular magic in a butterfly's most flamboyant feature ` her wings. There are four wings to every butterfly. Each with often dramatically different sides. Butterfly wings are covered in scales, arranged like rows of shingles. Some scales are coloured by pigments. These give butterflies their shades of black, brown and yellow. But other scales are transparent crystals that enable light to reflect from many internal angles. All the reflections add together, intensifying the hues and creating shimmering iridescence. Her wings are so brilliant, they appear to emit their own light. But the scales are fragile. Unlike bird feathers, they cannot be repaired or replaced. As they age, they simply fall away, revealing the delicate white veins that run through the wing and ragged remnants of their glowing beauty. Next to the beautiful wings is the butterfly's intriguing insect body. The little painted lady comes equipped with sensitive chemoreceptors. Even the tips of her legs can taste the leaf she stands on. Though all butterflies have six legs, the first pair is often much smaller and tucked up high on her body. Yet they too are able to taste the air and locate sources of food. Just one of her extraordinary eyes has up to 17,000 microscopic lenses that give her a mosaic view of the world. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) Instead of a nose, she has antennae loaded with chemosensors to catch the scent of flowers and mates. And as for ears, she hears with membranes that vibrate to sound and are placed on the undersides of her wings. Our painted lady isn't just resting with wings folded upright, she's also listening. Danger. But one of her most remarkable features is what we think of as a tongue ` the proboscis. It's made of two long strands that zip together to form a tube. She usually carries it coiled just below her head. To eat is to drink, so a butterfly simply uncoils her proboscis, and with the aid of a micro pump inside her head, pumps liquid nourishment up into her body. And it's not just nectar they're drinking. They can imbibe all kinds of beverages from lots of different surfaces. Sap from tree bark. And mineral-rich waters from sandbanks and tidal edges. Some even sip the blood, sweat and tears of various hapless neighbours. Being able to mop up many liquids has helped butterflies thrive all around the world. And what's been good for butterflies has been very good for all the plants they feed on. Flowers prepare for butterfly visits. They make nectar to offer a meal, but it's actually a form of seduction. The real takeaway is pollen ` the agent of procreation. Pollen resembles a sticky powder, and as the butterfly sips from the flower, it's proboscis can't help but pick some up. But the butterfly doesn't seem to mind or even seem to notice that it's proboscis is encrusted with pollen. It coils it up in the usual way, and it's off to the next flower. (GENTLE MUSIC) The plant is counting on the butterfly to bring its pollen to flowers of the same kind, completing a sexual connection the plant needs. That's how the birds and the bees and the butterflies too have helped plants reproduce for a very long time. But then there's the intriguing case of the flame azalea tree. Flame azaleas are native to the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States, and from late spring to midsummer, it's easy to see how they got their name. All along the high ridges, bright yellow to blazing orange blossoms burst out like signal fires ` unmistakable beacons to pollinators far and wide. But while the flowers are showy and obvious, just how they're pollinated is not. The mystery lies in the flower's unusual architecture. The long stalks branching out of the blossom are the anthers. At the end of each one is a packet of pollen. That pollen needs to reach the tip of the one even longer stalk. That's where the stigma sits, the female part of the flower. Many different insects gather nectar from these flowers. It's up to them to bring the pollen in contact with the stigma so that seedbearing fruit can form and the flame azaleas can reproduce. But the pollen and the stigma are so far apart, most insects can't make a connection between them. So who pollinates these trees Mary Jane Epps of Mary Baldwin University decided to find out. (CUCKOO CHIRPS) She set up a simple but effective experiment to solve the mystery. Instead of looking to see who came to the flowers, she asked ` what would happen when different pollinators were kept away? She covered some sets of flowers with a net of fine mesh that kept all visiting insects out. Then she created an open wire cage around another set that allowed in smaller pollinators like bees and beetles but kept out the large butterflies. A last group of flowers was left available to any and all pollinators. In every case where the butterflies could not reach the flowers, fruit failed to develop. Allowing smaller pollinators in didn't help at all. It was only the big butterflies of fritillary or more often a tiger swallowtail that enabled the trees to procreate. Mary Jane had determined who was pollinating the trees, but how were they doing it? A butterfly proboscis sipping from an azalea flower still doesn't connect with the pollen on the ends of those long stalks. Then Mary Jane noticed their wings. As the butterfly drinks, its wings constantly brush against the anthers. The faintest touch pulls out a chain of pollen, like a party streamer. And with another wing beat deposits some on a sticky stigma. Pollination has begun. This discovery was a true surprise, because it's just the third case of wing pollination ever recorded. As swallowtails flutter from tree to tree, their wings become an essential partner in the sex life of the flame azaleas. Now, a new generation of painted ladies is about to emerge. (ETHEREAL MUSIC) From the eggs laid just five days ago, a little caterpillar begins to break out of its shell. The eggs were only the size of a pinhead. The baby caterpillars are smaller than a grain of rice. Even the plant hairs sprouting from the leaf are giant obstacles for them. Almost nothing about this little caterpillar resembles its parents. With eight pairs of legs, a black spiky suit, and no wings at all, it's an entirely different animal. And its whole world is confined to its host plant. And so it eats. The more it eats, the faster it grows, and thus begins a life of one transformation after another. Little painted ladies will transition through five stages, called instars, building a new body each time. Every stage is a mini metamorphosis, as hormones trigger ongoing changes in the caterpillar's body. But unable to fly away, they're an easy target. A young blue jay, no longer fed by its parents, can make a good start on its own with helpless little caterpillars. But some caterpillars are able to fight back. A monarch is already set on an elaborate course of self-defence. The milkweed it feeds on is full of noxious chemicals, and the caterpillar will store them up and become noxious too. Some caterpillars are so toxic, they can make their predators really sick. These plump juicy-looking characters are busy weaponising black cherry leaves into a version of hydrogen cyanide. All across the butterfly kingdom, about 20,000 species known so far, 20,000 different caterpillars parade. Some glow a leafy green, others wear elaborate disguises, or simply taste terrible. This one tries to look like a snake. Sometimes it's hard to see what look they're going for. Others just look disgusting, like bird droppings. Or even an unappetising furball. It's all to give them a chance to eat and not be eaten. It's a problem they face all their lives, so if they carry their noxious chemicals into adulthood, That foul-tasting monarch caterpillar passes its milkweed toxins on to its butterfly form. Predators learn quickly not to eat it. And so its cousin, the queen butterfly, has converged on the same look. It too feeds on milkweed and tastes just as bad. By looking so similar, it doubles down on the warning signal the monarch sends to its predators. But some butterflies get away with a boldfaced lie. This highly toxic pipevine swallowtail is loaded with plant acids. Its beautiful markings are copied by the black swallowtail and a female morph of the eastern tiger swallowtail. Yet both of them are perfectly good to eat. They're hoping to scare predators away simply by looking like their poisonous cousin the pipevine. But whether your colours are true or false, you can't fool all of the predators all of the time. Butterflies are such important prey for so many creatures, they live in constant danger in every field and forest. In the wilds of Africa, a team of scientists are pursuing some fresh ideas about butterflies and their predators. They've come to Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique ` a global hotspot of biodiversity. Akito Kawahara of the Florida Museum of Natural History studies the evolution and diversity of invertebrates, especially of moths and butterflies. His quest into their origins takes him deep into the past and into the primal darkness of the African night. (OMINOUS MUSIC) The very air is thick with life. It could be a night millions of years ago. Insects swarm in staggering diversity. But it's the moths Akito has come to study. And from a brightly illuminated sheet, he hand-picks the characters he's interested in. Not far above their heads, predators begin to dive through the midnight swarm. Bats. The bats have brought Jesse Barber of Boise State University here tonight. He's an expert on how they hunt. Together, Jesse and Akito are investigating the ways a predator and its prey shape each other. They have a theory about how bats have driven moth evolution. And in the pitch black night, it's all about sound. As fast insect-hunting bats streak through the air, Jesse and his team record what we cannot hear ` the sound of bat sonar. (SQUEAKING PLAYS) The recordings are slowed down to a frequency within our range. (SQUEAKING PLAYS) Flying with mouths open, the bats generate high-speed sound signals from their larynx, seeing with sound waves and echoes. Pinpointing the moths' locations, the bats scoop them up in a membrane that stretches between their feet. Then Jesse's ultrasonic microphones pick up something more surprising ` moths sending out their own sound signals pitched at the same frequencies as the bats' sonar. Jesse and Akito bring selected moths into their field lab. They play bat echolocation calls to the moths and see how they react. (SQUEAKING PLAYS) Incredibly, the moths respond, essentially screaming back at the bats. (SQUEAKING PLAYS) Jesse and Akito have uncovered a sonic arms race we've never been able to hear. They believe that moths are mounting a counterattack, intended to jam the bats' sonar. And this is the foundation of their interesting new theory ` that this high-stakes combat in the night sky is responsible for a remarkable turn moths made some 50 million years ago, just as bats came on the scene. Butterflies in Akito's and Jesse's findings are just day-flying members of the moth family that fled the night, driven by the terrible efficiency of hunting bats. (SQUEAKING PLAYS) (BIRDSONG) It's quite a journey from night to day, from sound to colour, but once out of the shadows, butterflies encountered more predators than ever. They had to find a way to up their defences. From deep in the Peruvian Amazon, a report has surfaced of some strange behaviour between a butterfly and one of the most formidable creatures in all the rainforest. They're organised, disciplined, relentless, adaptable. The collective power of ants is enough to intimidate anybody. But Aaron Pomerantz, a PhD student at the University of California, has come to Peru to follow up on a startling account of a butterfly braving such an army. The story unfolds in a remarkable location ` on young stalks of bamboo. Butterflies were seen hanging out with ants on the tips of bamboo stalks, which is very odd because ants usually attack butterflies and attempt to eat them. The bamboo itself is part of the mystery. Not many things can eat its tough woody cellulose. But Aaron began searching for just the right young stalks and made a fascinating discovery. Tiny ants swarm all over the stalks, drinking a sugary nectar seeping from tips of the shoots. And in the leaves at the base of the bamboo, he discovered caterpillars. Ants hover over them. In a relationship that was new to science, the tiny caterpillars belong to a rare butterfly called Adelotypa annulifera, and they're closely guarded by ferocious ants. Then Aaron noticed that the caterpillars too were drinking the bamboo sap, all the while under the protection of the ants. The caterpillars earn this security service by producing a sweet nectar of their own from the bamboo sap. And the ants seem to prize this most of all. In fact, many different kinds of ants are eager to join the caterpillars' private security force. All Aaron needed to complete the story was the butterfly, the adult the caterpillars would become. He sets up a camera that's timed to take a shot every half hour. He hopes it will capture the rare creature and its unusual relationship with the ants. Excuse me, where am I? You're lost in the procrastination place. Yeah, right. That makes sense. MAN: Slap yourself out of it. Whoo! (GENTLE MUSIC) And what a boon for science a camera turns out to be. Left undisturbed for hours, it has captured a glimpse of this remarkable butterfly. They too come to bamboo to sip the nectar. In a rare instance of butterflies and their caterpillars relying on the same food, the nectar appears to fuel their entire lives. And amazingly, the ants allow it. It's the only example we know of where ants and butterflies feed together. And look closely at the butterfly's wings. Red spots on both sides of the wings may be mimicking the protective ants. A bird might look down and see a stinging adversary, while the ants looking up see a reassuring version of themselves. With or without bodyguards, a caterpillar's job is to store up enough energy to undergo one of the greatest rites of passage in all of nature. A painted lady has reached her last instar and finally stops eating. She spins a bit of silk, attaches herself to a stem, and hangs head down. Underneath her final caterpillar skin, she is once more creating a new body, but this time, it's stunningly different than the five bodies she has made before. When she finally wriggles free, she is no longer a caterpillar at all. She has become a chrysalis, a butterfly pupa. Her new shape is already a blueprint for the creature she will ultimately be. But now she's in the midst of a transformation so radical, science is still attempting to decipher how she does it. Her outer skin dries and hardens. For most of the next two weeks, the dull casing of skin looks dormant. But inside, special cells send out instructions that complete a miraculous metamorphosis. Then... suddenly,... she splits that skin open and is born again as a fully formed butterfly. She seems surprised by her unfamiliar body. How strange her new long legs must feel. Her head now has large complex eyes. Her jaws have been replaced with a long proboscis. Its two unruly strands must be zipped together ` if she can just get them under control. And now she has the ultimate in new parts ` wings. Slowly, they unfurl. (GRACEFUL MUSIC) Finally, she takes flight, joining a new cohort of butterflies trying out their wings for the very first time. And the way they fly is unique. Butterflies have such large wings for their body size, they contract their entire bodies to move them. To our eyes, their flight can seem remarkably awkward. They lurch and flop around ` big wings labouring through the air. Nothing else flies this way ` no bird, no bat, nor even any other insect. And none of it is a mistake. The large wings act like an enormous rudder, enabling a change in direction with almost every flap. They're so manoeuvrable and their flight plans so erratic, that they're very hard for predators to catch in the air. They contract their whole bodies with every stroke, making a figure eight with their wingbeats. They hover by stroking back through the swirling wake they just created. They often clap their wings behind their backs, squeezing out a jet of air to push themselves forward. Despite what it looks like, they fly with complete control. Now they can feed on nectar. But a butterfly doesn't go through metamorphosis just for a new kind of food. If caterpillars were made for eating, butterflies are made for mating. Caterpillars are juveniles, unable to breed. Now, wings open up a world of possibilities. They compete and flirt, dancing in the air, circling skyward in a butterfly ballet. Other nuptial dances are performed on the ground ` as a male tries to entice a female to be his partner. When they do mate, they join at the abdomen, facing away from each other. How long they stay together varies wildly from couple to couple. Some partners stay joined for hours. But not long after they part, the female must find the right host plant on which to lay her eggs. There's a great advantage in being a butterfly with a wide menu. Painted ladies are able to choose among 100 different plants their caterpillars will eat. So they find possibilities even here, in the Anti-Atlas region of Morocco, on the edge of the Sahara Desert in North Africa. This looks more like a moonscape than a butterfly garden. But this harsh landscape is the starting point of a butterfly tale so astonishing, it's hard to believe. Reports of a great seasonal abundance of them here intrigued Constanti Stefanescu of the Natural History Museum of Granollers. Hey! (SPEAKS SPANISH) For years, he's been coming to the desert to study their movements. One. He could see that the first butterflies to appear at the beginning of October were ragged individuals, their wings worn and torn. These butterflies had to be coming from somewhere else. Then Constanti analysed stable isotopes of hydrogen in their wings to pinpoint where the butterflies were born. The results were a revelation. The painted ladies, it turned out, had undertaken an impossible journey. Some arriving in Morocco from as far away as the Arctic Circle. This epic story begins as the cool wet winter in the desert turns to a hot dry spring. Host plants and nectar sources begin to wither. Painted ladies then turn to the north and suddenly depart to look for fresh food for themselves and their caterpillars. After crossing the Atlas Mountains, it's a short hop from Morocco to Spain, but painted ladies even farther south departed months ago from the tropical edge of the Sahara, riding warm African winds all the way across the desert and the Mediterranean Sea. They arrive in Rome, Marseille, and Barcelona and seek out some much-needed nectar. Then they mate and lay eggs. In six to eight weeks, a new generation picks up the baton and continues north. They fly across the Alps, fly up the Reine, spreading all throughout Europe, stopping to create new generations all along the way. By the end of summer, they finally reach high into Scandinavia and then suddenly disappear. What happens next has been one of the long-standing mysteries in natural history. No one had ever witnessed the return flight south of the painted ladies. They simply flew to the north and vanished. It was long thought that they all died in Autumn, but Constanti Stefanescu knew they were returning to Africa somehow. So he turned to Jason Chapman of Rothamsted Research in the UK. Jason studies the emerging new field of aeroecology ` how animals travel up in the atmosphere. This green drum-like apparatus is Jason's vertical-looking radar. The radar sends pulses of electromagnetic waves straight up 1200 metres into the sky. Any insect, bird or bat that flies through its beam will bounce a signal back to the dish. But to interpret what the radar sees and physically confirm which animals are up in the atmosphere, Jason and his team send aloft a series of aerial nets attached to high-flying balloons. They also send up instruments that measure wind speed, temperature, and all the conditions at altitude. The sampling goes on day and night, and as the nets go up, they recede into a sky so vast, it seems an impossible task to measure and understand what's going on up there, but the results of the study were stunning. On any given day or night, far above our heads, there are literally trillions of insects riding the winds. Among them are millions of painted ladies. In the fall, high in Northern Europe, as their resources are running out, painted ladies do disappear. They vanish into prevailing winds 500 metres above the ground. Guided by internal compasses set on the sun, they begin to stream south, flying at around 50km/h and up to 500km a day. Though these butterflies have never been there before, they are returning to the land of their ancestors. Millions will continue across the Sahara to the tropics. From Africa to Scandinavia and back, painted ladies will have travelled about 1500km. It's the longest migration for any insect ever discovered. Many are bound for Morocco, where Constanti Stefanescu has been waiting for them. (GENTLE MUSIC) Now as October brings fresh flowers to the desert, these champion butterflies find a haven for the winter. And their story is never-ending. They just keep going from butterfly, to egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly in a ceaseless cycle of transformation. Though their lives are fleeting and wrapped in fragile beauty, they are a force that has endured. Perhaps that's what makes butterflies so special ` both ephemeral and eternal. They are a perfect expression of the nature of life. Captions by Able. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able