This past October, a monarch butterfly received emergency surgery at the Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown, New York. The insect had fallen and damaged its wing after emerging from its chrysalis—the hard casing in which a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Janine Bendicksen, the center’s director of wildlife rehabilitation, decided to attempt a transplant.
Bendicksen carefully trimmed the damaged wing. Then she used contact cement to attach a new wing, taken from a deceased monarch. When the operation was complete, the butterfly immediately began fluttering around! The insect was then released into the wild. Bendicksen hopes that it went on to complete its migration—or seasonal journey—to Mexico along with others of its species. “Every animal has a purpose,” she says.