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Comment by montenegrohugo | Hacker News Reader

This is absolutely hilarious and illuminating at the same time. Don't think I'll be able to look at butterfly pictures without remembering this article.

It's also a great example of what I'd consider good HN content. Not necessarily useful or anything, but it certainly tickled my curiosity.

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I thought I'd remember this forever when I first read it years ago too. When I saw the headline on HN today, I couldn't remember what was unnatural about how we depict butterflies.

Do you not think the Eastern Tailed blue butterfly looks like the "dead" ones?

I saw this article years ago on HN and I can confirm I think of it every time I see a picture of a dead butterfly.

It could be useful for UX/UI folks who have input about content. Or imagine making a pitch (involving nature or tailored to nature) to a conservation agency where someone might have this knowledge and having a picture of a dead butterfly. That might be awkward.

Those are plausible, but pretty niche situations.

Yeah, but the niche articles are usually the most interesting. Just look at all the AI/ML/Quantum posts on HN, not to mention the posts that deal with some unusual bug. It's a very low chance that most people will deal with these, yet people still read them for the information.

Oh, definitely. But I think how interesting those are doesn't depend on those niches existing, it's an independent quality.

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