Lesson learned: When camouflaging butterflies, use marker! My butterfly was pretty easy to see but he would have been nearly invisible if I had some kind of iridescent black coloring. I plan to include this as a substitute lesson next year. My students are detail-oriented and care deeply about doing things right. They would definitely take 30-45 minutes coloring their butterfly.
This reminds me of a demonstration I saw using birds of prey several years ago. The audience watched an owl all but disappear when placed in front of a tree. We were viewing from about fifty feet away. We would have needed to be much closer to distinguish the owl from the tree. I wonder if there's any group that could come do this at my campus. I'll do some research because this could be a great in-house program.
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