Butterfly DNA solves copycat mystery Author: University of Edinburgh

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http://atomiumculture.eu/content/butterfly-dna-solves-copycat-mystery

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Edinburgh scientists have joined a global team to solve a 150-year-old scientific mystery. Researchers have helped show how rare interbreeding has helped butterflies acquire the protective wing patterns of other species.

Wing patterns
Butterfly species often share bright wing patterns that warn birds that they are bad to eat. The birds learn to avoid the patterns and the butterflies are protected from attack. Many butterflies, including the postman butterflies of South America, appear to copy each other’s markings. Scientists had thought that the butterflies had evolved the patterns independently. Researchers have now found that different species with the same wing pattern have swapped the genes controlling the patterning.

Survival tactic
This work is the clearest evidence yet that sharing genetic material can allow animals to rapidly change their DNA and evolve to meet the challenges of their surroundings. The results of the study are published in Nature.

"A recent revolution in the way we can look at the DNA of animals allowed us to discover that the butterflies copy each other’s patterns by exchanging DNA - a rather unexpected result",Professor Mark Blaxter, School of Biological Sciences.

Shared benefits
Postman butterflies are found in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Americas, from the Amazon basin to Texas. To protect themselves from being eaten by birds, the butterflies accumulate poisons from the plants they live on, which makes them taste bad. The birds learn to avoid the distasteful butterflies by sight. Different species have evolved similar wing patterns to share the benefits of protection.

[caseymoz]

1. This is interesting.

So, purportedly different species sometimes interbreed.

I guess I've always about Human-Vulcan sex.