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May 13, 2025

Butterflies hover differently from other flying organisms, thanks to body pitch

Tracking the movement of a white cabbage butterfly in a chamber constructed of transparent acrylic panels. Credit: Wu et al.
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Tracking the movement of a white cabbage butterfly in a chamber constructed of transparent acrylic panels. Credit: Wu et al.

Butterflies' flight trajectories often appear random or chaotic, and compared with other hovering insects, their bodies follow seemingly mysterious, jagged, jerking motions.

These unique hovering patterns, however, can potentially provide critical design insights for developing micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs) with flapping wings. To help achieve these applications, researchers from Beihang University studied how butterflies use aerodynamic generation to achieve hovering. They discuss their findings in Âé¶¹ÒùÔºics of Fluids.

"Hovering serves as an essential survival mechanism for critical behaviors, including flower visitation and predator evasion," said author Yanlai Zhang. "Elucidating its aerodynamic mechanisms provides fundamental insights into the evolutionary adaptations of butterflies' flight kinematics."

The scientists used high-speed cameras to capture this process in wild-caught white cabbage butterflies. To avoid damaging the butterflies' wings with physical markers—and thus altering their flight patterns—the researchers trained a deep learning model for tracking the butterflies' body features and specific wing points during their flight sequences.

By comparing multiple factors—including the size and shape of butterfly wings, and the mechanisms of upstrokes and downstrokes—the researchers found the primary factor contributing to butterflies' hovering is their body pitch.

Unlike other , butterflies continuously adjust the angle of their body as they hover, modifying the orientation of their aerodynamic forces to ensure their wing strokes provide sufficient vertical force while counteracting gravity. This adjustment, along with adjustments to their wing pitch angles, allows butterflies to generate adequate force to sustain hovering .

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Butterflies' ability to maintain hovering with light wings flapping at can help engineer stealthy MAVs with low structural demands. Though MAVs have already successfully replicated other insects' and birds' hovering capabilities, offer unique applications ranging from safety to conservation.

"This capability could revolutionize their operational scope, from navigating confined disaster zones for search-and-, to conducting precision pollination in greenhouse environments," said Zhang.

"We are particularly excited about deploying such silent hover-capable MAVs for noninvasive wildlife observation, where their biomimetic appearance and quiet operation would minimize disturbance to natural behaviors."

More information: The roles of body and wing pitching angles in hovering butterflies, Âé¶¹ÒùÔºics of Fluids (2025).

Journal information: Âé¶¹ÒùÔºics of Fluids

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Butterflies achieve hovering by continuously adjusting their body pitch, which reorients aerodynamic forces to maintain vertical lift with low-frequency wing flapping. This mechanism differs from other insects and enables efficient, stable hovering. Insights from this flight strategy can inform the design of micro-aerial vehicles with improved maneuverability and low structural demands.

This summary was automatically generated using LLM.