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Comment by Hnl1kf | Hacker News Reader

Counter-example that I took:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/25949441@N02/9377845729/

But yeah, I expect I’ll be seeing dead butterflies everywhere now.

That's a counter example in the same way that someone responding to "Stop depicting all humans as spread eagle with their hands over their head, they don't naturally stand like that!" with a picture of a basketball player's arms straight up would be a counter-example. Most lepidopterans are capable of that pose especially in active flight, but it's still unnatural.

I wouldn't call it unnatural; a landing butterfly may well flap for extra lift, the same way a bird does, in order to make a precise and controlled landing. (Hence incidentally the name "flaps" for the trailing-edge extra lift devices that serve the same purpose, in the same regimes of flight, for a rigid-winged aircraft.)

The larger point still stands that butterflies don't hold their wings this way at rest, and it's true of hymenopterans as well; you often see specimen wasps mounted with all four wings fully spread, where the living animal at rest invariably holds the rear wings against the front such that only the latter are really visible. The only time this isn't the case is in flight or when the wings are otherwise in use (eg nest fanning on a hot day), but you need a very fast shutter to freeze that motion, and all you'll see with your bare eye is a blur.

This is addressed in the comments to the article.

Basically: Some might get their wings into unusual position mid-flight, but the angle of the photo also plays in a great deal - the depicting addressed in the article is from directly above.

So what is wrong with drawing butterflies with this wing position? Nothing! It's possible and looks good.

Depends on whether you're depicting them from straight above or at another angle. The point remains that they don't typically hold their wings that far forward. It's not clear how far forward the one in the picture has its wings because of the angle.

So, sure, if you're depicting a buttery in a completely different pose to the examples in the article, it might be right.

Who can dictate what pose a butterfly should be drawn in?

You're being obtuse. You can draw it however you want if you don't mind depicting ones that look dead.

but you're not.. they can be in that position and some of them are in that position at rest

Maybe some can. I don't know. But the point remains that the supposed "counter example" is not evidence of this, and that irrespective of that, because most butterflies won't have them in that position depicting them like that will make them look like they are likely dead whether they are or not.

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