A pioneering exploration of butterfly markings and how
humans respond to them.
People have always marveled at the colors, patterns and designs
on the wings of butterflies and moths, but there has been little
attempt to decode them or to recognize any great significance in
them.
In Butterflies: Decoding Their Signs &
Symbols Philip Howse explains how these markings
protect butterflies and moths from their principal predators,
including birds, lizards and monkeys. These insectivores, he
argues, detect their prey by perceiving small details of shape and
color rather than the "whole picture" of the insect. These details
can create an illusion that camouflages the butterfly or threatens
its predator.
If humans look at the detail on a butterfly in the way that a
bird sees it, surprising images reveal themselves: owls'' eyes,
snakes'' heads, caterpillars, lizards, wasps, scorpions, birds''
beaks, feathers. Howse explores how these signs and symbols, so
important in the animal world, became archetypal symbols in our
world. Photographs and illustrations chronicle how butterflies and
their markings have appeared throughout history, whether on cave
walls and in modern art or in our most important mythologies, where
they were transformed into the Mother Goddesses by the ancient
Greeks, the ancient Egyptians and the Aztecs.
Butterflies: Decoding Their Signs & Symbols
is a fascinating illustrated study of butterflies, but it also
poses provocative questions and offers conclusions that will leave
readers with a new view of the natural world and how they perceive
it. Naturalists and lepidopterists will find it of particular
interest.
