These Butterflies Can Live 25 Times Longer Than Their Relatives. They Might Provide Insights Into Healthy Aging in Humans

Their unusual diet of pollen—rather than nectar—might partially explain why members of the Heliconius genus live so long, up to nearly a year

Sara Hashemi | Daily Correspondent

June 23, 2026 11:47 a.m.

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Most butterflies have short lives. Once one emerges from its chrysalis, it usually flies around for just a few weeks, then it dies. But some species of tropical butterfly can live for up to almost a year, making them downright geriatric.

Butterflies in the Heliconius genus, which reside in the rainforests of South and Central America, have evolved mechanisms that allow them to age far more slowly than their peers, researchers report in the journal Nature Communications on June 16. Although they still don’t know exactly what those mechanisms are, the findings point to a new way to understand healthy aging, which may translate to other animals, including humans.

Lifespans among Heliconius butterflies and their kin can vary widely. Heliconius hewitsoni, for instance, has been observed to live up to 348 days, while its close relative Dione juno has been reported to live for merely 14 days—a 25-fold difference.

“A lot of people have known—at least within the Heliconius community and also in the broader insect longevity community—that these butterflies could live for up to six months,” study co-author Jessica Foley, who researches aging at Tufts University, tells Pien Huang on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” 

One leading hypothesis for their long lives involves their unusual diet of pollen. “Pollen contains lipids. It contains amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein,” Foley says on the radio program. “Whereas most butterflies, including Heliconius’ close relatives, just feed on nectar, which is basically just sugar water.”

To investigate, Foley and her colleagues gathered data from published studies and butterfly houses to build a profile of aging across Heliconius and their close cousins. Then, they focused on the relationship between diet and lifespan in a representative pollen-feeding species, Heliconius hecale, reported to live up to 104 days, and its non-pollen-feeding relative, Dryas iulia, observed to live up to 68 days.

The researchers studied 96 individuals of H. hecale and 116 individuals of D. iulia, splitting the members of each species into groups that were either fed or withheld pollen. Over several weeks, the H. hecale butterflies that couldn’t eat their favorite food had a steeper decline in body mass compared to those that feasted on pollen. However, the pollen-deprived butterflies still lived longer than D. iulia, with a median of about seven weeks compared to four weeks, respectively, which suggests that diet isn’t the only factor contributing to H. hecale’s lifespan. And giving pollen to D. iulia didn’t affect its lifespan.

The team also devised a test to measure the butterflies’ age-related muscle decline, which is seen in many animals, including humans, via grip strength. They attached a sandpaper-lined perch to a wooden base and placed that on a balance scale in the lab.

For each creature, the researchers “zeroed the balance, and then gently held a butterfly by the wings and lowered it until it grasped the perch,” Foley tells Ashley Strickland at CNN. “We then tugged until it let go—but as the butterfly tugged, the balance would drop negative, and we could use the maximum negative reading as an indication of how much weight the butterfly could carry before it let go.”

While grip strength weakened with age in D. iulia, it didn’t in H. hecale, even throughout their longer lives, the team found. However, the pollen-deprived H. hecale were weaker than the pollen-fed group.

Although the scientists still don’t know exactly how the butterflies live so long, the study’s findings have far-reaching implications. The mechanisms behind aging are often similar across the animal kingdom. So, butterflies of the Heliconius genus could be used to study increased longevity, and the insights could potentially translate to humans, says Jaret C. Daniels, an entomologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the study, to CNN.

“The exciting implication of this lifespan extension is that it provides a powerful opportunity to identify the mechanisms that underpin longevity,” Foley says in a statement. “By comparing long-lived Heliconius butterflies with their short-lived relatives, we have a natural evolutionary experiment that can help reveal how lifespan is extended, making them a highly promising new model for research into the biology of aging and longevity.”

Sara Hashemi | Read More

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.