Supergene Controls Butterfly Mimicry

RESOURCE: http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?id=1115403893001


In my opinion, I think butterflies are one of the most beautiful insects on Earth. I've mainly liked them because of their beauty until now. For butterflies to survive, some have evolved wings that look just like a poisonous insect. But in other situations equally poisonous insects have evolved together to look exactly alike. One butterfly in particular, the Helicomius Numata, which survives in the Amazon, have many different wing designs from various species copied from another butterfly, the Melinaea! This is an example of something called Miillerian Mimicry. This helps the Helicomius to survive by making predators think they're poisonous. This then raised the question as to why the Helicomius Numata could have so many different patterns if it only had one set of genes. As the video stated, in 1970, scientists came up with the hypothesis that the wing mimicking was under control of a supergene. A supergene is a long stretch of DNA which has many smaller genes inside of it. During the recombination stage of reproduction genes mix and match up, but those genes inside of the supergene were immune to that. So now we know how the Helicomius keeps its many patterns separate but people still want to know how it works. A French scientist then started a Helicomius Numata DNA study and today we have the answer to our question! The supergene breaks down and recombines to make one of the variations resembling the Melinaeas' patterns. This is why the Helicomius Numata has so many different pattern variations and why predators think it's poisonous. I think this is a very cool thing that this species can do this and trick predators. Maybe this will happen to snakes. Will they start to overpopulate? I guess we'll just have to wait and see!