Colorful Butterflies Help Us to Study Evolution

Colorful butterflies help us to study evolution

Butterflies are the colorful insects. Antonia Monteiro and his colleagues have found that the beautiful pattern of butterflies may help in the study of evolution. Each species have separate colors. They select their mating partner on the basis of their body color. The colors help them to camouflage in their environment when their enemy comes. The scientists found that the pigment producing cells can be used to find how the shapes, sizes, and colors of an organism have evolved.

Butterfly bellows to the order Lepidoptera. There are a total of 17,000 species worldwide. Unlike moths, butterflies are active during the day and are usually brightly colored or strikingly patterned. Distinctive features are club-tipped antennae and a habit of holding the wings vertically over the back when at rest. With few exceptions the larvae and adults eat plants. Butterflies are classified into five or six families. The metalmarks of the family Lycaenidae are found chiefly in the New World tropics; some members of the family Nymphalidae are called snout butterflies. Other species (with their families) include the white and sulphur butterflies (Pieridae), the swallowtail butterfly (Papilionidae), the blue, copper, and hairstreak butterflies (Lycaenidae), and the admiral, monarch, and painted lady (Nymphalidae).

White butterfly below to the family Pieridae. Adults have a wingspan of 1.5–2.5 in. (38–63 mm); the wings are white, with black marginal markings. The pattern and color of many species vary with sex and season. Many of the green, slender larvae, most of which are covered with a short down, or pile, are pests of garden crops. The pupae are attached to a twig by a posterior spine and a girdle of silk. Scientific name is Pieris brassicae.

European cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae). Its larva is a major economic pest, attacking cabbage and related plants.

Introduced into North America c. 1860, the cabbage white is today one of the most common North American white butterfly species.