Clap Your Hands - _TNY_2169
Here's a short clip of the face of a banded blue morpho (Morpho achilles).
You see those fuzzy little "arms" on each side of the proboscis? Those are called labial palps (or palpi). There are multiple theories about what their purpose is, from serving as tasting organs, to protecting the probocis when curled up or perhaps to keep the compound eyes clean when it is feeding.
Since I had the camera on a tripod when I took this, I decided to try capturing a short video with the macro rig instead of just whipping out the smartphone.
This resulted in this neat little clip where you can see the butterfly moving those - I can't decide if they look like it's clapping it's hands or doing an impression of the Scared smiley.
A photo showing the details in higher resolution here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52897749844/
Clap Your Hands - _TNY_2169
Here's a short clip of the face of a banded blue morpho (Morpho achilles).
You see those fuzzy little "arms" on each side of the proboscis? Those are called labial palps (or palpi). There are multiple theories about what their purpose is, from serving as tasting organs, to protecting the probocis when curled up or perhaps to keep the compound eyes clean when it is feeding.
Since I had the camera on a tripod when I took this, I decided to try capturing a short video with the macro rig instead of just whipping out the smartphone.
This resulted in this neat little clip where you can see the butterfly moving those - I can't decide if they look like it's clapping it's hands or doing an impression of the Scared smiley.
A photo showing the details in higher resolution here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52897749844/