Marqi Butterfly
Basic Information
Anatomy
The Marqi Butterfly is a fairly large insect. It has a black body with six legs and long antennae, with golden yellow and tan wings. Its wingspan can be up to 9 inches. Males are typically brighter in color than the females, who are often more of a cream and white coloration, with fewer flecks and spots along the rims of their wings, and will often have a brown border in their wing segments. Their caterpillars, their juvenile form, are quite large, and often a bright white color with black banding.
This species is incredibly sensitive to changes in its environment, likely due to the regions they inhabit having very little influence from people, and are not adapted to chemical changes. Even the most mild of pesticides are known to cause mass deaths in their populations, as well as fertilizers, herbicides, and pollution caused by vehicles. Their caterpillars, which have incredibly soft and sensitive bodies, are especially vulnerable to chemical pollutants and are known to absorb them through their skin, so must be handled with extreme care and only by those not wearing any perfumes, skin creams, or makeup, and only when wearing gloves.
Ecology and Habitats
This species is exclusively found in the northern portion of Antarctica, and is one of the few insect species that seems native to the region and has naturally evolved there, likely from butterflies swept across the ocean by high winds from Australia. They have adapted to the warmer regions of the continent that are ice free in the spring and summer, with very few predators. Typically, they are only fed on by flying birds as adults when migrating to the coasts to eat salt from the shoreline. With such few predators, they are quite docile and calm to other animals and people alike. Caterpillars are known to not attempt to flee or have any form of defense mechanisms when handled.
As they are highly dependent on the freeze thaw cycle of their native range as well as local flora not found elsewhere, it is unknown if the species is able to survive in any other environment. Due to their extreme sensitivity to chemical changes in the environment, the species is protected under the Antarctic Animal Act.
Dietary Needs and Habits
These butterflies feed almost exclusively on Antarctic mosses, lichens, and shrubbery as flowering plants are extremely rare across the continent. They will supplement their diet with animal matter, such as blood, broken penguin eggs, and are known to migrate en mass to the coasts in order to feed on salt build up on rocks and icebergs.
Biological Cycle
The butterflies emerge from their cocoons during the first melts of the year in late spring, quickly taking to their mating flights. They will then lay eggs on lichens and mosses, continuously breeding throughout the mildly warm summer. By the time temperatures begin to fall once again, the vast majority of adults will die off. Caterpillars will hatch roughly 5-9 days after their eggs are laid, and will spend the majority of their time eating, gaining weight and growing in size as the warm seasons begin to quickly fade. Before the first snowfalls of the year, the caterpillars will begin to dig burrows underneath vegetation where they are more insulated and spin a cocoon to begin the process of metamorphizing into their adult forms over winter. Studies conducted have found that the process will often pause during the coldest months and that most individuals will often freeze completely solid, thawing out later on as spring approaches and resuming their change.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Illegal Antarctic sight seeing tours are well known to have devastating effects on the species by introducing pollutants into their natural environment and encouraging tourists to interact with the insects. In particular, many of these illegal tours are known to capture dozens to hundreds of caterpillars and move them to areas tour groups will be passing through ahead of time so that tourists can see them and will often pick them up for photos. The caterpillars are often not relocated to their original locations, and due to being placed in such a high density, will often outstrip tour routes of food and starve to death before they can pupate. Adults are also often captured for these tours, and reportedly once the tours leaves, there will be hundreds of them found dead from fumes released from the tour boats, being touched by tourists, or being fed unnatural food items. Tour groups will also frequently trample pupating caterpillars.
A sad commentary on human nature and climate change. :/ Well written.