Take a look at this ChouChou Butterfly Robot from the the Tokyo Toy Show. Apparently it gets power from a battery in the lid via a wire.
(ChouChou Butterfly Robot)
Science fiction writers have long thought about mechanical insects and their possible uses - like the tiny scarab robot flying insect used for surveillance in a 1925 short story. More recently, in his 1980 novel Changeling, Roger Zelazny writes about an artificial butterfly in a mechanized park:
He patted a dusty synthetic tree and crossed the unliving turf past holograms of swaying flowers to seat himself upon an orange plastic bench... Artificial butterflies darted along invisible beams... Concealed aerosols released the odors of flowers at regular intervals.
One of the fake butterflies passed too near, faltered and fell to the ground.
Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1936.
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'- Philip E. High, 1968.
Bartendro Robot Bartender
'He sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him...'- Alfred Bester, 1956.
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Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'