Butterflies Regulate Body Temperature

In order to fly, butterflies need to regulate their body temperatures through thermoregulation. There are two types of ways to regulate body temperature. The first one is ectothermy. Ectothermic animals, or cold-blooded animals, rely on outside sources to heat or cool themselves. Cold-blooded animals can lie under the hot sun to heat themselves up and prepare for flight or to move around. However, if there is no source of heat, they are not able to raise their body temperature to the correct level for movement. Butterflies can bask in the sun and angle themselves differently in the sun to obtain maximum heat from the sun. Endothermy is the second type of thermoregulation. An endothermic animal regulates their body temperature through their
We then had two experimental groups. The first experimental group was a butterfly with a darker purple wing color. This butterfly also lied flat under the light source. The second experiment group was the same lavender butterfly, but instead of lying flat, the wings were folded over each other and placed on its side under the same light source. For the experimental group, each group within the class conducted two ten minute trials and collected 60 samples per minute. Our Null Hypothesis was that the behavior and coloration of the butterflies’ wings had no effect on thermoregulation. Our Alternative Hypothesis was that behavior and coloration had an effect on thermoregulation. Our results led us to fail to reject the Null Hypothesis due to the fact that our p level exceeded 5%. Therefore, we cannot say that behavior and coloration had an effect or that it did not have an effect on thermoregulation. In our results, our p value was greater than five percent. This was probably do to experimental error. Instead of one group doing the same experiment, multiple groups participated so that the experiment could be finished in time. This probably led to the experimental error. Each group could have tilted the butterfly a slightly different way, filled the tube with different levels of water, folded the butterfly a different way, or placed the light source at a different angle and height