TANTALIZING BUTTERFLIES
NATURE IS SEEN through cultural spectacles. A tantalizing beauty in western cultures (quick to move, erratic in flight, dressed in spectral colors), the butterfly appears in the iconography of highland Mexico, especially in the art of Teotihuacan, lodged in the open and toothed jaw of a jaguar. Among the Classic Zapotecs and Maya, the butterfly was associated with war. Not a single Euro-American poet has made that association. We more easily appreciate the view of the ancient Greeks, for whom 'psyche' was the word for soul (hence psychology), as well as for butterfly. Hope arose from metamorphosis, for the butterfly 'died' as a pupa, and then 'resurrected' as an adult.
Neither the Greeks nor the Mexica had a microscope, allowing them to see a butterfly egg. The egg of each species is distinct, with regular features, dots and lines, as if it were a sand painting or Zuni pottery. An eating machine, with small eyes, too many legs, often hairs and bristles, and a huge gut, hatches from the egg. Many butterflies lay their eggs higgledy-piggledy, but some species arise from eggs deposited on particular plants selected by mother; these butterflies are host-plant specific.