These copycat butterflies teach predators not to eat them

Sometimes, you need to fit in with the crowd to survive - as these copycat butterflies show 🦋

Since English naturalist Henry Walter Bates first wrote about the different colour forms of longwing - or Heliconius - butterflies in 1862, scientists have been fascinated by them.

As well as teaching us about how species evolve to mimic each other, the butterflies can be used to answer loads of interesting questions about natural selection and how new species evolve.

For example, are similar wing patterns in different species controlled by the same genes? What happens when lookalike species have offspring together? And what drove so many species of Heliconius to evolve? These questions can help us understand the natural world around us, as well as human evolution.

Our support has helped build a community of scientists who work together to study these questions. Together, they sequenced the first genome of a Heliconius butterfly in 2012 and made it freely available, which exploded the possibilities for studying the genetics behind their variations.

Видео These copycat butterflies teach predators not to eat them канала UKRI Stories