When a male of Green Hairstreak (probably Favonius jezoensis, family Lycaenidae) was licking the surface of dry soil with his proboscis to take essential minerals along a mountain trail, a robber fly (unidentified, family Asilidae) came flying and attacked it from behind (@1:12). The beautiful butterfly with damaged wings managed to escape from the predator just in time. The wingbeats in the emergency takeoff were recorded at 240fps highspeed movie and then replayed at 40x slowmotion. Captured at sunny noon (around 11:55 AM) of lateJuly 2023 in Japan.

For a full story (text in Japanese);
https://sigmanaturevlog.blogspot.co...