Patterns There are over forty Heliconius Here is a butterfly to colour in. species. The map below shows What patterns can you make the patterns of just one species, using the RED, YELLOW and Heliconius melpomene. BAND SHAPE genes? All of these patterns are made using just three genes, RED, YELLOW and BAND Butterfly! SHAPE. Each gene has several variants. Evolution! RED From Jungles to Genomes band dennis dennis+rays

YELLOW band bar margin absent There are millions of different kinds of animals. BAND SHAPE How can we explain the one two broken diversity of animals we find in the world?!

We are working on this question by studying butterflies from Central and South America. The dazzling variety of their wing patterns is produced by combining variants of a small number of genes.

For films, games, news! and more, visit www.heliconius.org @heliconians History Genes Mimicry In 1848, Henry Walter Bates and Butterfly wing patterns are Distantly related species of Alfred Russell Wallace sailed to produced by a small number of Heliconius often have very South America to search for patterning genes.! similar wings.! evidence of evolution. For example, a gene called optix switches For example, H. melpomene and H. erato Bates was particularly interested in the on red colour. are five times more distantly related than wing patterns of the Heliconius butterflies. humans and chimpanzees, but have He found butterflies with very different In butterflies with dennis patches, optix is almost identical wing patterns. wing patterns at different locations along switched on by another gene called the Amazon river. But as he travelled homothorax, which defines a region at between these locations, he found the base of the wing. transitional forms between these patterns. But in other butterflies, optix does not Bates returned to Britain just as Darwin have a homothorax switch, so isn’t turned published On the Origin of Species. Spot the! on at the base of the wing. Darwin believed Bates’s butterflies were one of the best examples of evolution in difference! the wild, but neither understood how the variation in wing patterns was produced. homothorax is turned on at H. erato (top) and the base of the forewing in H. melpomene all Heliconius butterflies. (bottom). Can you see any differences between them? dennis patch

homothorax turns optix on in some butterflies but not others, These butterflies are poisonous due to homothorax turns optix on in butterflies with dennis toxins from the plants they eat when they patches, because the optix switch fits homothorax. are caterpillars. Birds taste the butterflies and learn to associate their bright, bold wing pattern with poison after only a single taste. band Species mimic each other to gain safety in

on in some butterflies but not others, numbers. The more butterflies with the But other butterflies have different switches for optix same pattern, the quicker the predators that don’t fit homothorax, so optix is not switched on, learn. and there is no dennis patch. Another gene, like homothorax, turns optix on in bands - but we don’t Warning patterns and their mimicry are know what it is yet… great examples of evolution by natural selection.