I have been meaning to post about another big Heliconius paper that came out earlier this year which made a major advance in our knowledge of the genes underlying Heliconius wing patterning. We have known for some time now, from work led by Simon Baxter in my lab, that a narrow genomic interval is responsible for controlling red wing patterns in both the co-mimics H. melpomene and H. erato. In a paper earlier this year, Bob Reed’s lab made a major advance on this by showing that the …

A paper describing how Heliconius numata maintains multiple morphs in a single population will be published in Nature on 8 September. This represents many years of work by Mathieu Joron and many others, and shows how genome rearrangements can play a role in adaptation – its a neat story. Here follows part of a press release that went with the paper, and see also a rather neat video produced by Nature:
The study focused on the Amazonian species Heliconius numata, which mimics several other butterfly species at a single …

This post updates my post of 17 Feb 2009.
I have recently found that the search engine at darwin-online.org is not perfect. If you search for “helic” on the whole darwin-online.org site, you’ll draw a blank. I had then also forgotten something I had known for a long time: that Darwin did discuss Heliconius and other mimetic butterflies in the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.
Darwin was trying to explain bright coloration, and birds and butterflies were among his main empirical examples. Bright colours in many butterflies are …

Maps of Heliconiina distribution except Philaethria, by subspecies. Still very crude web presentation method, and some maps need revisions, but will be updated. See: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/heliconiina_maps/Heliconius_chklst.html

Supposedly, Friendly Fires smeared rotting banana over their hair to attract butterflies at a butterfly house, and they got a bunch of Morphos that way. However, the Guardian seems to think they look nicer with Heliconius as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/graphic/2011/may/14/the-guide-friendly-fires-cover?intcmp=239
 

This is a photo taken by Patricio Salazar of a Heliconius (Laparus?) doris laying eggs on a P. ambigua in the garden of our house in Gamboa, Panama. The ambigua vine has been growing there for many years, but I have never seen eggs laid on it before. H. doris is an interesting species – it is highly polymorphic for wing pattern. Its taxonomy is also controversial, with molecular data clearly placing it within Heliconius, but morphological data suggesting it is a distinct genus (Laparus). Clearly …

Fritz Muller’s original mimicry paper

Chris,
Can  you add this to the publication list, please:
2010. Salcedo, C. Environmental elements involved in communal roosting in Heliconius butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Environ Entomol. 39(3): 907-11.
2010. Salcedo, C. Evidence of pollen digestion at nocturnal aggregations of Heliconius sara in Costa Rica (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Tropical Lepidoptera. 20 (1): 35-37.
Saludos,
Christian

One of my favourite conferences is always the international biology of butterflies meeting – the general enthusiasm of butterfly people always makes it a stimulating event, and as it only happens every four years or so, there is plenty of time to recover for the next one. The most recent, and now the 6th time the congress has been held, was in Edmonton, Canada last week.
Evolving wings
The Edmonton meeting was no exception to the rule, and there was a generous helping of Heliconius biology to boot. Much of …