Brian suggests ‘Giant H. erato FG hybrids maybe (DdSdsd)’. Any more suggestions regarding their genotype/species?

The trailer can be seen here on YouTube

Here are some links that give more details:
Science perspective article by Sean Carroll
Link to original article

The study focused on the Amazonian species Heliconius numata, which mimics several other butterfly species at a single site in the rainforest. One population of Heliconius numata can therefore feature many distinct wing colour patterns resembling those of other butterflies, such as the Monarch’s relatives Melinaea, which are unpalatable to birds. This acts as a disguise, protecting them against predators.

The researchers located and sequenced the chromosomal region responsible for the wing patterns in H. numata. The butterfly’s wing-pattern variation is controlled by a single region on a single chromosome, containing several genes which control the different elements of the pattern. Known as a ‘supergene’, this clustering allows genetic combinations that are favoured for their mimetic resemblance to be maintained, while preventing combinations that produce non-mimetic patterns from arising. Supergenes are responsible for a wide range of what we see in nature: from the shape of primrose flowers to the colour and pattern of snail shells.

The researchers found that three versions of the same chromosome coexist in this species, each version controlling distinct wing-pattern forms. This has resulted in butterflies that look completely different from one another, despite having the same DNA.

“We were blown away by what we found”, said Dr Mathieu Joron of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, who led the research. “These butterflies are the ‘transformers’ of the insect world. But instead of being able to turn from a car into a robot with the flick of switch, a single genetic switch allows these insects to morph into several different mimetic forms – it is amazing and the stuff of science fiction. Now we are starting to understand how this switch can have such a pervasive effect”

Professor Richard ffrench-Constant of the University of Exeter added: “This phenomenon has puzzled scientists for centuries – including Darwin himself. Indeed, it was the original observations of mimicry that helped frame the concept of natural selection. Now that we have the right tools we are able to understand the reason for this amazing transformation: by changing just one gene, the butterfly is able to fool its predators by mimicking a range of different butterflies that taste bad.”
This single supergene also appears important in melanism in other species, including moths. In April 2011, a team led by Liverpool University explained in the journal Science how the Peppered Moth developed its black wings in nineteenth-century Britain’s sooty industrial environment.
“This supergene region not only allows insects to mimic each other, as in Heliconius, but also to mimic the soot blackened background of the industrial revolution – it’s a gene that really packs an evolutionary punch,” added Professor Richard ffrench-Constant.

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 characteristic of males, and can be explained by sexual selection.

However, heliconians and danaines are more or less sexually monomorphic. So why are these butterflies brightly coloured? Warning colours and mimicry provide an alternative explanation of bright coloration not involved with sexual selection. See: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F944&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 and search for “helic”.

This is also where Darwin recounts how Wallace in the 1860s solved the problem for him of bright colours in caterpillars (which have no sex, and so couldn’t be sexually selected!). They were warningly coloured.

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 more molecular data will be necessary to resolve this issue. The current data is dominated by information from mitochondrial sequence – it is possible that more nuclear sequence data will give a different answer.

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