Basically just that 95% of butterflies are drawn in unnatural stretched out death poses used by collectors to take better pictures for books. But that has become the reference material so they are drawn in poses that they can't do in life.
Butterflies feeding in the sun may fold their wings up to look like a sail, but other times you see them with wings stretched out.
Now, it’s true when you see a group of butterflies they are not uniformly in one position. But some of their positions coincide with those of pinned butterflies. It’s also true some pinned butterflies spread out their wings in extreme positions but not all are pinned like that —at least not by amateurs.
We have swarms of butterflies here every end of the summer and I can confirm that it is true. Plenty of those sitting with spread out wings, folded wings and all kind of in-betweens.
It’s not about whether the wings are open or closed, it’s that the “dead” ones are drawn with the wings raised up above the head. It’s as if people were always drawn with their arms raised straight in the air -- not an impossible posture but a pretty unusual one.
Not all the “dead” one are drawn to show and highlight their wing geometry and colors. Iconic ones, yes, typically, but some are drawn in flight, feeding, and wings fanned out but not unnaturally.
Now, iconic ones, yes, typically. But it’s the same for other exemplary of iconic models. When did you last see a toilet door with a natural picture of a person rather than an iconic outline?
The same could be said of lots of things.
When we have a concert T-shirt of a performer you more often than not get a more of less straight on shot. Or political candidates. You get their headshot not a profile pic or a pic of the backs of their heads.
Why should depictions of butterflies depart from a pose that exposes more of their recognizable and appreciated features?
What about flower photography? Why don’t they use shriveled up wilted flowers for Valentine’s Day? Why do they look for perfect specimens?
Sure, I get it, “ha ha, look you idiots that’s not the natural pose of butterflies, you guys and gals have been getting fooled and I’m not”
Not all the “dead” one are drawn to show and highlight their wing geometry and colors. Iconic ones, yes, typically, but some are drawn in flight, feeding, and wings fanned out but not unnaturally.
I just did a couple of image searches.
First, searching for "butterflies", I get many different photos of real butterflies in various postures. The most common is wings open, spread out horizontally. None of the real butterflies have their wings stretched upwards in the pinned-out posture.
Second, filtering the same search with "image type: clip art", fully 99% of the results have the wings spread out and stretched up. (The 1% is detailed, realistic drawings.)
Now, whether you care about this is another matter, but it's hard to deny that that article is onto something. There's a very consistent quirk in the way butterflies in particular are illustrated.
Sure, I get it, “ha ha, look you idiots that’s not the natural pose of butterflies, you guys and gals have been getting fooled and I’m not”
I think you're misreading the tone of that article and the people citing it. It's not anger or contempt; it's sadness that real living butterflies aren't widely understood, and hope that the stereotyped depiction can be improved on.
