IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led team of scientists says the long-held theory that butterfly vision and wing color diversity are linked is true -- at least in nine species.
Researchers led by University of California-Irvine biologists said they discovered butterflies that have a duplicate gene allowing them to see ultraviolet colors also have UV-yellow pigment on their wings.
Associate Professor Adriana Briscoe, researcher Seth Bybee and colleagues posit the UV-yellow pigment helps the butterflies survive by facilitating the search for appropriate mates, which leaves more time for reproducing, eating and thriving.
After researchers discovered the copied gene, they examined thousands of wing-color patches and found butterflies with just one UV-vision gene had yellow wing pigment that was not UV. However, the pigment was UV in butterflies with both genes.
Having both genes allows molecules to form in the eyes that are more sensitive to UV light, enabling the mimetic butterfly species to better tell each other apart, Briscoe said.
"We now have strong reason to believe that we'll find other examples in which vision and wing colors are linked," she added.
The research that included scientists from the University of Washington in Seattle, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan appeared recently in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
