Butterfly Tongue, Pleasant Valley, Maryland, 1968

Photograph by Paul A. Zahl

A bewhiskered face, here magnified 15 times, belies the beauty of a nymphalid butterfly. Hornlike antennae serve as taste, touch, hearing, and smell sensors. Blotchy eyes with hundreds of minute lenses guide the butterfly to nectar-bearing flowers whose colors give off ultraviolet rays visible to the insect but not to humans. To reach nectar buried deeply in blossoms, it uncoils its long, hollow tongue, now tucked between its eyes.

(Photo shot on assignment for "Nature's Year in Pleasant Valley," April 1968, National Geographic magazine)