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The Giant Owl Butterfly (Caligo idomeneusThey can avoid predators by using eye spots that mimic the eyes of owls.
Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group (image credit: Getty Images).
This excerpt is from ” Carbon: The Book of Life ” Paul Hawken, author and environmentalist (Viking 2025), explores the fascinating world of insects. He examines the amazing adaptations that critters such as dragonflies and butterfly have developed to survive. Hawken believes that by focusing on Earth’s lesser-known inhabitants, the public will gain a greater appreciation of life. This, he claims, is key to reversing and stopping the climate crisis.
The flameskimmer is hovering 2 feet away from me, staring straight at my face. The red, bulbous eyes of the flame skimmer have 24,000. This allows it to look 360 degrees — upwards, downwards, backwards, forwards and all around. It’s unimaginable what it does to me.
The opsin molecule, which is the universal photoreceptor found in all visual systems throughout the animal kingdom, has 30 of them. With my two blue corneas and three opsins, I turn back. The skimmer, which is hovering and dashing about in the fishpond, where I’m sitting, has satin red and orange wings. The visitor is a 0.1-ounce (2.8-gram) skimmer that darts at speeds of up to 60mph (96km/h).
As a larva it spends its three to four year lifespan as a freshwater Nymph. It is an underwater omnivore that feeds on tadpoles. It is wearing iridescent wing that sparkles like ball gowns. The nymph prefers to mating in an unmodest manner, so it does it immodestly. It is 350 million years old. As I watch it pulsate and sparkle in front me, completely stationary, there are 350 millions of years of evolution.
The compound eyes of dragonflies can detect ultraviolet light. This gives them an unmatched ability to sense shape and motion. They have used their active motion camouflage to help military experts develop stealth software. Dragonflies hunt by hovering perfectly still, and positioning themselves between their prey, and the shadows cast behind them, such as a tree. This conceals its location. This is a little like sneaking up behind a tree to find someone hiding in the forest. A dragonfly will constantly adjust its position to match the movement of its prey. This way, it can keep its tree and prey aligned. Dragonflies gradually get closer to their prey until they are within striking distance. Dragonflies have adapted well to this evolutionary process, making them highly effective predators even though they live short lives.
Flame skimmers (Libellula saturata(Image credit: Ron Reznick/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) (Image credit: Ron Reznick/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In 1949, a remarkable example of Indigenous observational sciences was discovered. Ethnoentomologists have documented the Dine’s (Navajo’s) knowledge of over 700 insect species, including their habitats and sounds. This is a form of observational science that has been passed down through generations. Why did they do it? Why did the Navajo do this? You can find out more about this by clicking here. scientists. Scientists.
The giant owl (or butterfly) lives in the forest of Mexico.Caligo eurilochusWhen predators are not present, it flaps the papery wings of its 7 inch (18 cm) long bird at dusk. Each wing has a perfect eyespot at the base. Together, these spots resemble an owl’s eyes. It would be a challenge for an artist to make such replicas.
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Henry Walter Bates, an English naturalist, was the first to explain copycat wings. Bates, who arrived in 1848 and traveled up to the Amazon River and its tributaries. His book is not only racist, but also contains a lot of other things. “The Naturalist on the River Amazons,” This is an amazing description of his 11-year study, where he collected more than 14,000 species, and identified over 8,000 of them, from foraging ants, to the jaw-dropping Mygales spiders, which eat birds, that children proudly paraded about leashed as a pet.
Bates, like other naturalists in his time, John James Audubon, and Alphonse dubois shot birds left and right to be packaged in formaldehyde, and then handed over to museums of natural history. His primary focus was Amazonian butterfly species.
The wing color of edible butterflies was mistaken for that of predatory or noxious species by dragonflies and insectivorous bird. Spicebush Swallowtail CaterpillarPapilio troilus) It is black and white, disguised as birdpoop. The molt will continue three times, with the spots that look like snakes on its head. This is known as Batesian imitation.
The evolutionary process rewards deceptive patterns of wing and coloration to conserve species. Darwin described Bates’s natural history book as the best ever written in England. Bates was an early proponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Darwin and Bates couldn’t explain how butterflies can disguise themselves. Caterpillars had they ever seen an owl eye? It’s true that they evolved and mistakes are eaten up. But how does a caterpillar pupa morph into an adult butterfly, with a perfect copy of the owl eye on its wings, before it is swallowed?
A regulatory network is the scientific explanation. It allows for genes to learn and collaborate with each other. This does not explain how genes are programmed. Genes began painting wings in pigmented patterns of incredible fidelity and complexity millions of years ago. Who was the painter?
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Text of “Carbon” Published by Viking, Penguin Publishing Group, Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright (C), 2025, by Paul Hawken. Penguin Random House has granted permission to reprint this article.
You can learn more about Paul Hawken by reading an interview here. In the article, he talks to Live Science, about the need for a paradigm shift in order to value, protect and restore the Earth and all its inhabitants.
Paul Hawken, an environmentalist and activist of renown, is also a successful entrepreneur. Hawken is an author of nine titles, six of which were national bestsellers and New York Times best sellers. He has just published a new book. “Carbon: The Book of Life” Published in March 2025. Hawken, when he’s not writing, consults governments and CEOs about climatic and economic regeneration.
