Rebecca Manzi A team of veterinarians in New York saves a monarch butterfly with a one-of-a-kind wing transplant. The rescue video goes viral: a small miracle that moves and conquers the web.
At an animal rehabilitation center in Smithtown, New York, a team of experts performed an intervention that seems straight out of a fantasy tale: a wing transplant on a monarch butterfly. The operation, conducted at the Sweetbriar Nature Center, restored freedom to a butterfly found with a broken wing, unable to fly.
She was brought there by a citizen, Dagmar Hoffdavis, who didn’t turn away from a living creature in distress. The intervention, led by center director Janine Bendicksen, required hours of work and an extremely steady hand. The solution? Using the wing of a deceased butterfly, found on the center’s floor, perfectly intact and compatible with that of the tiny patient.
Surgical technique and unexpected materials
To reconstruct the wing, Bendicksen and her team employed tools as simple as they were ingenious: contact glue, cornstarch, and a metal wire to keep the butterfly still during the delicate procedure. The peculiarity of the intervention lies in the lepidopteran’s biology itself: butterfly wings are composed of chitin, a rigid protein also present in insect exoskeletons.
This characteristic made a painless transplant possible, since wings contain no nerves or blood flow. After approximately five hours of meticulous work, the result was astonishing. The butterfly, once free, took flight naturally, demonstrating that the intervention had not only succeeded but had truly given her a second chance.
A small gesture that conquers the web
The video of the wing transplant was posted on the center’s Instagram profile and quickly went viral, collecting thousands of views and comments. Among messages of amazement and ironic jokes, many users defined the operation a true “miniature miracle”.
For Bendicksen, however, the real miracle is seeing how a simple act of empathy and scientific creativity can change the destiny of such a fragile creature. And while the butterfly resumes her migratory journey, perhaps toward Mexico, the world witnesses a story that reminds us that even the smallest life deserves a second chance.
