Insects in Flight at Seattle's Pacific Science Center

By Kristy Brady

Monarch butterfly at the Pacific Science Center.

A number of years ago, Biology professor Tom Daniel’s lab used high-speed, black-and-white video cameras to record different insects flying on a stick for an exhibit at the Pacific Science Center (PSC) in Seattle. The exhibit shows how insects move their wings during flight. Recently Tom saw the exhibit for the first time in several years and realized it was high time to update the aging exhibit.

Tom’s lab took the project on enthusiastically.  But instead of simply replacing the exhibit, they decided to make it better. They were going to capture insects in free flight. The obvious place to start was in the PSC’s butterfly house. So several graduate students, a post-doc, and a high school student in the Daniel Lab visited the PSC several times over the last year to film butterflies in flight. Initially the lab was using high-speed, black and white video cameras. But after replaying the flight sequences back in the lab, they realized they were not capturing one of the butterfly’s greatest features, color. So the lab contacted Vision Research, their camera supplier, and asked to borrow a high-speed color camera for this project. Vision Research was happy to oblige.

Nicole George, left, Andrew Mountcastle and Zane Aldworth filming butterflies with high-speed cameras at the Pacific Science Center.

Watching an insect in flight with the naked eye is a completely different experience than watching one fly through a high-speed camera. Graduate student Andrew Mountcastle aptly calls high-speed cameras “time microscopes” because, he explains, “high-speed cameras magnify time just as a microscope magnifies space. So you see things you can’t normally see.”

In addition to replacing the initial exhibit, the lab has sufficient footage to compose a short video on butterfly flight that the PSC plans to feature just outside the entrance to the butterfly exhibit.

To see some of the footage captured by the lab, check out Andrew’s Web site.