Evolution and bad-tasting butterflies
Sunday, December 7th, 2008University of Florida research takes a look at the evolution of butterflies.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Competition for resources can cause animal species in an ecological community to evolve away from each other, becoming less similar — but University of Florida research shows that sometimes mutual benefit causes just the opposite.
Case in point: South American butterflies that discourage predators by advertising the message “we all taste bad” via similar, conspicuous color patterns.
Here is the paper itself in PLoS Biology.