“It’s also the most difficult study I’ve ever been a part of, and it took a massive effort from people all over the world to complete.” “In many cases, the information we needed existed in field guides that hadn’t been digitized and were written in various languages,” Kawahara said. Rachit Singh/Florida Museum of Natural History Red lacewing butterflies are known for their vibrant colors and intricate patterns. But there was no singular resource on plants for the researchers’ work, so they painstakingly assembled their own. Scientists were also interested in learning about the plants butterflies relied on for their survival, since the evolution of these plants would also impact how the insects changed over time. Given that Antarctica was once a warmer environment millions of years ago due to hotter global temperatures, it’s likely that butterflies once lived there and crossed into Australia before it separated into its own continent. The researchers were also surprised to find that butterflies reached Australia, which was still attached to Antarctica when the insects appeared there. “Many butterflies in Europe are also found in Siberia and Asia, for example.” “Europe doesn’t have many butterfly species compared to other parts of the world, and the ones it does have can often be found elsewhere,” Kawahara said. While the researchers aren’t sure what caused the delay, the elongated pause is still evident. Huertas/Trustees Natural History MuseumĪ new group of butterflies has been named after the 'Lord of the Rings' villainīutterflies lived on the edge of western Asia for a lengthy amount of time, possibly as long as 45 million years, before migrating to Europe. Butterflies also reached India, an isolated island at the time, despite the fact that it was surrounded by open sea.ī. Some butterfly species took an extended scenic route to Africa by moving across the Bering Land Bridge from North America and taking root first in Asia, where they spread across Southeast Asia, then migrated to the Middle East and the Somali Peninsula in East Africa. North and South America were also separated by the sea, and Mexico, the US, Canada and Russia were all joined together by land. When butterflies first appeared in Central America and western North America, a vast seaway divided North America into two regions. While some populations traveled seemingly impossible distances, others remained in place as the continents shifted around them. Rachit Singh/Florida Museum of Natural Historyīutterfly DNA painted a dramatic portrait of how the winged insects came to exist around the world over time. The small but striking striped punch butterfly lives across the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Malaysia and western Indonesia. “But most butterfly fossils are poorly preserved, so we could only include about 10-15 fossils in our study that we trusted based on paleontological research.” “We used multiple fossils for the study in order to calibrate particular parts of the tree,” Kawahara said. The fossil specimens provided the researchers with genetic mile markers, helping them determine when critical events happened in butterfly evolution. These precious remains of early butterflies are difficult to find because the insects have thin, fragile wings and threadlike hairs, neither of which preserve nearly as well as bones do in the fossil record. Monarch butterflies could become extinct if we don't take these 3 steps, experts sayĪt the heart of the study were rare butterfly fossils. The ability of insects to adapt to toxins in food plants is researched in the Phytotechnikum on in Stuttgart, Germany. STUTTGART, GERMANY - MAY 13: Monarch butterfly in the research greenhouse of the University of Hohenheim. The geographical origins of butterflies was unexpected because previous hypotheses had supported the idea that they came from current-day Australia or Asia. Understanding different populations and species of butterflies can better help scientists and conservationists protect the insects and their habitats. The research is a first step in a larger project concerning butterfly species, and it can act as a resource for future studies, said lead study author Akito Kawahara, curator of lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History.īutterflies face many threats due to the climate crisis, including habitat destruction and global warming, which is causing some species to migrate to new environments. The team’s findings, published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, showed that butterflies first originated in what’s now North and Central America. The researchers used four supercomputers in Europe and the United States to process the data, tracing the feeding habits and migrations of the butterfly species over time. The spot swordtail butterfly lives in South and Southeast Asia.
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