Butterflies Have Hearts In Their Wings. You Won't Believe Where They Have Eyes

Short Wave

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

Adriana Briscoe, a professor of biology and ecology at UC Irvine, studies vision in butterflies. As part of her research, she's trained them to detect light of a certain color. She also explains why they bask in the sunlight, and why some of them have 'hearts' in their wings. Plus, you'll never guess where their photoreceptors are.

She's written about the importance of teachers and mentors in diversifying the STEM fields.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody, Maddie Saffai here, and Emily Quang, wishing you a happy Indigenous
0:05.2	people's day.
0:06.5	To Native American, Alaska Native, and Indigenous people in STEM, we see you, and we appreciate
0:12.4	you.
0:13.4	The shortwave team is off for today, so we're on-coring one of our favorite conversations
0:17.7	from the summer.
0:18.8	You will never see butterflies the same way.
0:22.0	Thanks for listening.
0:23.3	Enjoy.
0:24.3	You're listening to Shortwave.
0:27.6	I'm NPR.
0:30.4	Adriana Brisco has probably forgotten more about butterflies than you or I will ever know.
0:37.2	Probably, yes.
0:38.2	That's a fair assessment.
0:41.6	She's a professor of biology and ecology at the University of California Irvine.
0:46.3	And my lab studies the evolution of coloration and vision in butterflies.
0:53.8	Now you can probably guess that butterflies see with their eyes, thanks to these little
1:00.5	light-detecting cells called photoreceptors.
1:04.2	But they also have those photoreceptors in interesting places.
1:11.2	They have photoreceptors in the genitalia.
1:13.8	Yeah, genitals.
1:16.4	You can imagine how that might be beneficial to them because...
	...

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