Self-repair of the Lepidopteran Proboscis

Self-repair in the animal world typically involves regeneration of body parts. We present an example featuring the proboscis of butterflies and moths, which after separation of the galeae, undergoes nonregenerative repair. We demonstrated the ability of representative species to completely reunite (repair) the proboscis after total separation of the two galeae, and we showed that the repaired proboscis can take up fluid. Movements of the...