Butterflies in Space? Only on the Space Station

December 7, 2009 — They do fly, after all. It’s just that they normally don’t fly in space and live on the International Space Station. Butterflies are emerging from their cocoons inside the orbiting space station's Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus. These are the first ever Monarch butterflies in space, and the first Painted Lady butterflies ever to undergo all phases of development — larva, pupae and adult — in microgravity. These "butterflynauts" are part of an educational experiment that was launched November 16 on space shuttle Atlantis and transferred to the space station. Students have been following the tiny crew's development from larvae to butterflies. In addition, in classrooms across the U.S., students have set up habitats and are replicating the space experiment. Their objective is to compare the growth and behavior of ground-based butterfly larvae and adult butterflies with those living in the microgravity environment of space. About 2,800 teachers — representing more than 173,700 students from all 50 states and the District of Columbia — are participating in the experiment. BioServe is releasing video of the space butterflies as it becomes available. Video is posted to YouTube and BioEd Online. "The larvae didn't seem to have problems navigating and feeding in the space environment. Now, the opportunities to investigate microgravity's effect on adult butterfly behavior, wing development and flight are beginning," said Dr. Nancy Moreno, professor of allied health sciences and senior associate director of Baylor College of Medicine's Center for Educational Outreach. "The photos and video are being archived, so classrooms can participate in the experiment at any time and compare their classroom larvae with photos of space larvae at the same developmental stage," Moreno said. An interesting observation was that Monarch wings usually take three to six minutes to dry after emergence, but in orbit it took about 15 minutes. Monarchs usually live about two weeks on Earth, but these are expected to live about four days in space because of the cramped quarters. Painted Lady butterflies usually live 10-14 days on Earth, and are expected to live about a week in orbit.

Scientists on the International Space Station are studying the phases of butterfly development — from larva, pupae and adult — in microgravity. Photo credit: BioEd Online This Painted Lady is one of the first butterflies to ever hatch in microgravity. Photo credit: BioEd Online

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