Lab Mimics Evolution of Butterflies
Here’s some interesting news considering the recent buzz surrounding the Polargrizz discovery.
It seems that scientists may have mimicked evolution by breeding 2 species of butterflies to create a butterfly that almost exactly matches a 3rd butterfly species found in the wild.
Heliconius melpomene, has wings with bright red bands. (upper right of photo)
Heliconius heurippa, has BOTH yellow and red bands. This caused biologists to theorize that it may be a hybrid of the two other species. (center of photo)
Researchers then bred H. cydno and H. melpomene to see if they could recreate the look of H. heurippa. Just three generations of interbreeding later and they had themselves a critter that looked remarkably like H. heurippa.
The researchers’ findings were published in today’s issue of Nature, Speciation by hybridization in Heliconius butterflies (subscription required). National Geographic also published a story about the research, Two Butterfly Species Evolved Into Third, Study Finds.
New Species of cricket identified in Malaysia: Rhomboptera Selangorensis
This little critter has been sitting around waiting to be identified since 1961. Hope it wasn’t too dusty for researcher Muzamil Mustaffa. He published a paper in the Journal of Asian-Pacific Entomology, Rhomboptera Selengorensis, a New Species of Bush-crickets from Peninsular Malaysia (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Pseudophyllinae) [pdf], describing the new species in detail.
It was named after Selangor, the region of Malaysia where it is found.
The Malaysian National News Agency also has a short article on it, New Grasshopper Species Found In Selangor.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Orthoptera
Family: Tettigoniidae
subFamily: Pseudophyllinae
Genus: Rhomboptera
The “Katipede” - a millipede discovered by a community college student
You don’t have to go to some fancy school or have a fancy degree to discover a new species.
Kate Edwards, an 18 year old student at Berkshire Community College, recently discovered a new species of millipede while on a field trip to Costa Rica. The Berkshire Eagle has the full story at BCC student spots new species
The new millipede species doesn’t have an official name yet so it’s been nicknamed the “katipede” after the discoverer.
Did You Know:Millipedes are also known as diplopods. They can sometimes be confused with their cousins, the centipedes. There’s an easy way to tell the difference though. Millipedes have two sets of legs for each body segment whereas
centipedes just have one set of legs for each body segment.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Myriapoda
Class: Diplopoda