A man in Jordan has fashioned a tiny prosthetic wing for an injured butterfly using dried orchid petals, giving the insect a chance to fly once more.
The painstaking repair has since spread online, highlighting how even modest acts of kindness can have a meaningful impact on delicate wildlife.
Watch: Man repairs butterfly wing with orchid petals
Morhaf Ghazi, a 30-year-old resident of Amman, found the butterfly while hiking in the hills outside the city. One of its wings was badly damaged, and the insect could not take off or move properly, so he picked it up carefully and carried it home.
For several days he kept the butterfly in a safe, quiet space, feeding it a weak sugar-water mix to keep it alive while he searched for a way to repair the wing.
Rather than leaving it grounded, Ghazi decided to try building a replacement wing out of dried flower petals he had kept for almost nine years. He had pressed and stored orchid petals over time, and their thin, flexible texture felt close enough to the tissue of a butterfly wing.
After looking at online guides on how to handle butterflies safely, he spent about an hour trimming a small piece of petal to match the size and shape of the uninjured wing and then fixed it in place with a tiny amount of mild glue.
Once the glue dried, he watched as the butterfly slowly began to move again, testing its balance and strength. The next day, it managed to lift itself into the air, land, and take off again, showing that the makeshift petal wing allowed it to fly in a way that was not possible before.
Ghazi told reporters that he had been surprised by how quickly the butterfly recovered and said he hoped sharing the story would remind people to pay attention to small creatures and not underestimate what a small act of care can do.
Wildlife and insect experts have long repaired butterfly wings using small pieces of wing cut from deceased butterflies, often held in place with light glue and powder, but Ghazi's use of dried flower petals is a more unusual and low-tech approach.
His case has spread on social media, where posts of the butterfly are being shared under captions such as "a second wing, second chance," underlining how even a simple repair can change the outcome for a fragile living thing