Oct 2, 2009 9:16 am US/Pacific
NorCal Amusement Park Makes Scientific Discovery
VALLEJO (CBS13) ―
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A blue-banded purple butterfly (Myscelia cyaniris) is one of up to 4-5 butterflies at the Butterfly Habitat at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA on Thursday, October 1, 2009 that are documented to have lived more than a year.
Nancy Chan/Six Flags Discovery Kingdom/CBS
Life is good at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo for at least one of the park's residents...the blue-banded purple butterfly.
The amusement park says at least four of the butterflies have reached the ripe old age of one year. The average age of a butterfly is generally two weeks.
"This is the first time we've documented a butterfly species living this long – as of today, 367 days," said Rich Kelson, entomologist at Six Flags. "We can probably attribute their longevity to their sedentary behavior since they're only active part of the day, and the fact that they are exclusively fruit feeders and drink the fruit juice; fruit feeders also tend to live longer. Of course, genetics probably plays a big role to their long lives as well."
They started with about 20 blue-banded purple butterflies. The four surviving butterflies hare a little tattered and have some missing scales.
There is no known documentation that this species lives this long in the wild. According to Kelson, tagging studies done on Monarch butterflies suggest long lived individuals but not a year.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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