Article in Animation – The Blood Flower and the Butterfly

A recent publication by lab members, Hannah Butler (that’s me!) and Steve Johnson, has been turned into an animation by the Linnean Society.

Animation still from the Linneaen Society showing Scadoxus multiflorus subspecies katharinae visited by a male mocker swallowtail.

The original publication “Butterfly-wing pollination in Scadoxus and other South African Amaryllidaceae” has garnered a fair bit of attention since published in March 2020. Whilst scientific articles published in well rated journals are still the main course of action for the long-toothed to the freshly budding scientist, modern technologies and of course the increasing use of the internet is resulting in new ways of publicizing science. Science magazines have been turned into blogs, and even vaguely whimsical blogs such as this one serves to introduce readers to scientific articles and the like.

I feel some might find this somewhat of a conundrum, but personally, I love it! I doubt that the joy of introducing people to the research one has been conducting ever goes away. For this article, I was a mere 21 years of age when I started my research, with many questions and confusions rattling around in my brain. Days of standing in a muddy swamp buzzing with stinging insects and temperatures of over 35 degrees Celsius resulted in the discovery we expected but we hoped would be of interest to the larger scientific community. A great deal of more hot days, terrifying statistics and seemingly endless reading resulted in a published article I will forever be extremely proud of. We had discovered a new case of butterfly wing pollination! Surely someone else would be interested?

Original photo by SD Johnson showing Scadoxus multiflorus subspecies katharinae visited by a male mocker swallowtail.

It turns out that they were. Emails asking me to write a post for other blogs; emails from well-known blogs wanting to publish their own post about it; emails from students and academics alike asking more about it and congratulating me; and then an email from the Linneaen Society about turning the article into a short animation. How exciting! The resulting animation is succinct and beautiful (not least because some of my own illustrations were used). As much as the publicity and interest received for this article thrills the original authors, I am most pleased that it is reaching and hopefully exciting others.

Text: Hannah Butler.

In case you missed the link to the animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrNrna62Snc&feature=youtu.be