BUTTERFLY

Group 4

By Freya L, Jack N and Esteban H 7E

Mother Teresa Catholic College
INVESTIGATION AIM:
To find out the best angle of attack for a butterfly.

HYPOTHESIS:
We think an angle of approximately 60 degrees will be the best.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH
Butterflies
Butterflies are flying insects with small, light bodies and large colourful wings. There are
thousands of different species of butterfly. Not only are butterflies amazing and beautiful
animals, but they have a big part to play in pollinating plants. Like bees, they contribute to
the life cycle of plants. So as well as making our world more beautiful, butterflies help
provide us with food like fruit, nuts and vegetables. Butterflies start off hatching from eggs
as caterpillars. After feeding and growing they turn into a chrysalis (cocoon) hanging from a
plant. Their body changes and eventually a butterfly emerges. This is called metamorphosis.
Butterflies fly about to find food, mate and lay eggs. Butterflies are cold-blooded, their body
temperature depends on the temperature of their surroundings. Some species of butterflies
escape from cold winters by migrating to warmer places. One of the most amazing animal
migrations is by the American Monarch butterfly. In autumn a Monarch butterfly will fly
thousands of kilometers from Canada down to warm Mexico. For such a delicate creature to
make such an incredibly long journey it must be an expert flyer.
The National Geographic documentary “Great Migrations” shows that a lot of the time the
Monarch butterflies aren’t actually flying by beating their wings up and down, but are
holding them out and gliding. Gliding saves them a lot of energy. At the Tropical House in
Sydney Zoo we watched several species of butterfly in flight. They usually flapped their
wings to fly by they also used gliding, sometimes only for an instant, but occasionally on
long swooping gradually falls. Even for butterflies that don’t migrate, being an efficient flyer
means more food and a better chance of living long enough to lay eggs and keep the species
going.

Butterfly wings
A butterfly has four flat wings; a pair of wings on each side of its body. Each front wing is
hooked to the wing behind it so as to make one big flat surface. Each pair of wings beats as
one. The wing structure is made of the veins. The membrane that stretches over the
structure is as thin as a thousandth of a millimetre and covered with tiny overlapping scales.
Power for flapping the wings comes from powerful muscles in the thorax. Other muscles
adjust the angle of the wings.
How the butterfly flies through air
There are forces that act upon a butterfly when it flies:

 Weight - the force that is pulling down toward the ground (gravity).

 Lift - the force that allows the butterfly to move upward.

 Thrust - the force that pushes the butterfly forward.

 Drag - the force that pulls the butterfly backwards.

To fly through the air a butterfly usually flaps its wings. This creates lift and thrust. By
flapping its wings a butterfly creates enough lift to overcome drag and gravity, and is able to
push itself forwards and up.

Gliding
Sometimes butterflies don’t flap their wings but glide. Gliding uses less energy than flapping
wings. This makes for efficient flying. If it’s already high, a butterfly can spread out its wings
and ride the air down in a controlled fall. If there’s a thermal, the butterfly can glide up on it.
A thermal is a rising current of air. Thermals occur where the wind is forced upwards by
cliffs or hillsides, or where the air has been heated by warm ground (because hot air rises).
The thermal pushes up under a butterfly’s large outspread wings.

EXPERIMENT
It is very difficult to study real butterflies. At Harvard University, scientists have used
artificial butterfly wings to investigate butterfly flight. The Harvard scientists tested the
effect of the angle of a butterfly's wing on the lift force.
We decided to follow the Harvard study and to use paper wings to find out the best angle
for a butterfly to hold its wings at, to get the strongest glide. We would find out how much
air lift there was when the wings were at different angles. We made paper butterfly wings
(much larger than real) and put them on in an outstretched (gliding) position on a craft-stick
stand. We put the wings on their stand in front of a fan. When we turned on the fan we
could see the blowing air lifting the paper wings. We put the wings and stand on a set of
scales and set the dial to zero. When we turned on the fan the dial went down to a minus
amount. The airflow from the fan was creating lift. We could put the paper wings at
different angles and using the scale, test the strength of the lift at each angle. We could find
the best angle for the strongest lift.
STEPS
1. Make paper butterfly wings
2. Build 10 craft stick "supports" to test in 10 degree increments from 0°–90°.
3. Clip paper butterfly wings onto each support structure in turn (using two binder
clips).
4. Place scale and fan on the floor exactly 80 cm away from each other.
5. Place the first support structure, with a butterfly clipped on at 0° (horizontal), on top
of the scale with the butterfly facing toward the fan. Set the scale’s dial to zero.
6. Turn on the fan and after 30 seconds record the measurement that is on the scale.
7. Repeat experiment for 20° angle, and in increments of 10 degrees, up to 90° (at right
angle to the fan’s breeze). Record results.
8. Repeat tests over again 5 times. Record results on table.

CONTROL OF VARIABLES:
We set up our experiment as far away from any walls or other obstructions (like
furniture) as possible.
We closed all the windows.
We made sure the fan was always on the same speed and direction each time.
We made sure the butterfly wings on the scale was always the same distance
from the fan.
RESULTS
Lift (grams)

Angle Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5 Average

0° 0g -1g / 0 g 0g -1g / 0 g 1g–0g 0.3 g
10° 0g -1 g / 0 g 0g -1 g / 0 g 0g 0.2 g
20° -1g -1 g -1 g -2 / -1 g -1 g 1.1 g
30° 0g 0g -1 g 0g 0g 0.2 g
40° -1 / 0 g -1 g 0g -1 g 0g 0.5 g
50° -1 / 0 g 0g -1 g -1 g 0g 0.5 g
60° 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g
70° 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g
80° 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g
90° 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g 0g

Note: When the dial on the scale varied from showing 0 and -1 degrees, we have recorded
this as -1g/0g.

ANALYSIS
Our hypothesis was that the strongest lift would be at 30 degrees. But the experiment
showed that it was 20 degrees. Over five tests, the strongest lift of the paper butterfly wings
was when they were angled up at 20 degrees. When the butterfly wings were 60°, 70°, 80°
or 90° there was no lift. We had expected this because the angle was too steep and the air
from the fan pushed the wing back more than lifting.

PROBLEM
The scale could only measure differences of 1 gram. Maybe scales that could measure less
than one gram would have been better.

CONCLUSION
Our experiment shows that butterflies get the best glide when they angle their wings 20° off
the angle of the air flow. Our hypotheses was 30°. When butterflies can hold their wings at
20° they can glide best. This would help them fly further on less energy and find more food
and survive longer. Maybe other gliding animals (such as birds and bats) might also hold
their wings at 20° for their strongest & longest glide.
IMPLICATIONS
If you wanted to build something that would have a strong gliding action, based on my
experiment results, set the wings at 20°. If you wanted to make a paper plane, or a set of
hang-gliding wings. A drone could save energy by sometimes gliding if the wings were at
20°. From my experiment results, base jumpers and sky divers could try holding their bodies
at 20° to get the best lift and most efficient glide.

FINALLY
Not only are butterflies amazing and beautiful animals, but they have a big part to play in
pollinating plants so that plants don’t die out. The way people are rapidly changing the
natural environment has a big impact on butterflies. Clearing land of flowering plants means
butterflies have to fly further to find food. In Australia, some butterflies, such as the Purple
Copper, are in danger, and it's going to need all the help we can give it. Learning what helps
butterflies survive is the first step towards helping them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Esteban’s dad took us to the zoo. Mrs Eaton helped us to change the Harvard experiment to
something easy.

REFERENCES
“Great Migrations” DVD - National Geographic, 2010.

http://australianmuseum.net.au/wanderer-butterfly

Exploring Life Science Encyclopedia. Vol 2 : B & C - Marshall Cavendish, New

York, 2000.

What is flight? - Peter Mellett and John Rostron, Armadillo, London, 2014.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141010-monarchbutterfly-migration-
threatened-plan/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatened_fauna_of_Australia#Invertebrates_3