Butterflies Under the Sea Did you know there are butterflies under the sea? Well, technically they are not butterflies, but researchers did discover that inverted snails that live in the ocean move like butterflies do. Rather than using their flesh to crawl on the seafloor, they actually move by turning their bodies upside down and use their flesh as "wings" to maneuver in the water. Scientists found that this movement is exactly the same as what fruit flies and other small insects do in the air. This is certainly a mark of an evolutionary process, as these snails learned this crafty trick to "fly" through the water in what is essentially a figure-eight movement. It also shows that creatures who live under-the-sea may be more closely related to insects than originally thought. "No one has actually been able to measure the flow around an insect doing this while it is flying, and so that was kind of the holy grail of this area of research." David Murphy, co-author of the Journal of Experimental Biology, said in a statement. "It really surprised me that sea butterflies turned out to be honorary insects." Are you impressed by this scientific discovery? Do you think that there is more to be discovered when it comes to the habits of creatures under the sea? We loved reading this story at Hulett Environmental Services!