Unveiling the Colorful World of Butterflies: Biologists' Discovery

Biologists at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that sexually dimorphic vision in butterflies, where females perceive ultraviolet color while males see light and dark, is caused by a vision gene's jump onto a sex chromosome. This finding, observed in the Heliconius butterfly genus, is the first known instance of this genetic change causing sexually dimorphic vision. The study highlights the complexities of genetic sequencing and the importance of manual validation. The vision difference may explain why females and males of some butterfly species feed on different types of flowers.