Thursday, March 6, 2014

Pachliopta aristolochiae

This combination of photos provided by researchers shows a toxic Common Rose butterfly (Pachliopta aristolochiae), top, whose wing markings are mimicked by a Common Mormon butterfly (Papilio polytes),middle. At bottom is a non-mimetic female Common Mormon butterfly. To fool predators, some butterflies create wing color patterns that make them resemble their unpalatable cousins. Only recently have scientists been unraveling how they do that, and now researchers have identified the gene that does the trick for this Asian swallowtail, reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday, March 5, 2014. (AP Photo/Krushnamegh Kunte, Khew Sin Khoo, Rohit Girotra)

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