11/03/2025
The Common Buckeye Butterfly is typically a solitary creature but this one found a little friend. One of their caterpillars’ defense mechanisms is that they prefer plants with a specific organic compound that is growth-inducing for them while being growth-resistant in their predators (and thus the predators avoid those). In fact, when female butterflies are choosing where to deposit their eggs, they can sense this compound down to the molecule. While they prefer those plants with an abundance of the compound, researchers found that it only takes one molecule for them to consider the plant an option. 🦠🦋🤎