Butterflies are fascinating insects that are easy to observe in the field. They belong to the order of the Lepidoptera, a word of Greek origin that means ‘ wings with scales ‘ and that groups both the diurnal butterflies and the moths or nocturnal butterflies.
It is these wings full of pigmented and reflective scales that give butterflies their spectacular and striking coloring. In addition to being so pleasant to observe, these colors play a very relevant role in the reproduction and survival of butterflies.
According to the latest research, the colors of butterflies are the product of small structures on the wings, called gyroids, that refract sunlight like a prism . And, oddly enough, it turns out that only one gene is responsible for regulating these rich color patterns, as demonstrated by a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2017.
The researchers used the CRISP / Cas gene editing technique to inactivate the gene and observe changes in the coloration of the butterfly’s wings. What they observed is that this gene, called WntA, is the same for all butterfly species, but it works differently in each of them and is even expressed in different areas of the wings: sometimes in the veins and sometimes in the base of these organs.
The complexity of these small scales that form the wings of butterflies is such that each of them has a unique structure, a fact that has even inspired the creation of a technology to shield credit cards and documents against possible counterfeits. It has been done by a Serbian company, which has christened the technology Teslagram and applies the scales of butterflies that have died by natural death to any object that they want to protect, including works of art.
Butterflies are fascinating and we are discovering more and more surprising things about them. For example, a study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution in 2016 found that the Graphium sarpedon butterfly species has fifteen types of photoreceptors in its eye, a record in the insect world and allowing it to detect a variety of colors. different.
In this gallery we are going to show you some of the most beautiful butterflies in the world. And, furthermore, we remind you that the survival of many butterflies, like that of other pollinators, is today compromised, among other things, by the abusive use of herbicides and insecticides.
