How Butterflies Got Their Spots.

How Butterflies Got Their Spots: A 'Supergene' Controls Wing Pattern Diversity

Butterflies are known to employ some interesting convergent evolutionary tactics to survive--some nonpoisonous species have similar wing patterns to those of noxious species that predators avoid. In a new study published online today in the open access journal PLoS Biology, Mathieu Joron, Chris Jiggins, and colleagues investigate the underlying genetic mechanisms of such molecular mimicry in three species of Heliconius butterflies.

In this study, the authors investigate two distantly related species (H. melpomene and H. erato) that have similar wing patterns and a third species, H. numata, that is closely related to H. melpomene, but displays very different wing patterns. Each of these three species is also known to mimic a different species within another butterfly genus, Melinaea. Several genomic loci are already known to be responsible in part for encoding the wing patterns and colorings.