www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Make of this what you will...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/scie ... iting.html

Frankenoptera?

Tony M.

Thanks for posting Bugboy I found the article fascinating Perhaps their findings could explain aberrants like excessa in Hedge Browns or the aberrations caused by heat shock during development; the particular gene is damaged at certain temperatures leading to increased melanism or not. This research could provide some fascinating insights into butterfly development but also the provide more evidence to allow correct taxonomic sorting; looking for similarly adapted patterning genes

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Some interesting stuff there...but reminds me a bit of this,
Cheers,

Neil

For those who are interested in the research, as well as those who have reservations about it (as I do), here's a link to my recent review of The Ecology & Evolution of Heliconius Butterflies by Chris Jiggins: http://www.dispar.org/reference.php?id=132. It's a fascinating read (the book, not the review!) but for me some knowledge comes at too high a price.

Guy

Reading this makes me feel uncomfortable. I've precious little objection to homo sapiens fiddling around with genetics for bona fide human health reasons, but this kind of meddling appears to have minimal (if any) justification.

Like Neil has posted, we seemingly do it because we can, not because we should.