| Show Butterfly's Trunk Is Explained by Delaware rare Scientist Newark Del Butterflies Butterflies and moths uncoil their long or trunks on very much the same principle as that used in the toy paper snakes that startlingly dart lart into your face at carnivals or parties blown out of o a tight coil by b the breath of some fellow- fellow reveller This simple mechanical explanation tion of one of biology's most difficult difficult difficult cult riddles has been discovered by Dr J. J B. B Schmitt of the University of Delaware In Two Sections A butterfly's proboscis is not a simple tube or pipe It is made of two trough-shaped trough sections held to together to- to together together gether at the edges so that it adds up as a tube through which the insect can suck up flower juices In each half beneath the trough there is a tube closed at the outer tip but communicating with the head-cavity head at its base Each of ot these tubes is filled with blood Nor Nor- Normally Normally Normally mally the proboscis is kept coiled by the pull of many short muscles arranged diagonally But when the insect is ready to feed a valva closes at the base of each tube preventing the blood from flowing back into the head At the same time certain muscles squeeze down on the base of the tube like a hand handon on a rubber bulb This puts pres pres- pressure pressure pressure sure on the fluid which has no no- nowhere nowhere nowhere where to go but out so that it pushes out into the tube and straightens it out S |
