DNA links male, female butterfly thought to be distinct species

Date: July 27, 2017

Source: Florida Museum of Natural History

Summary: Researchers recently discovered what was thought to be a distinct species of butterfly is actually the female of a species known to science for more than a century.An international team of nine butterfly researchers from the U.S., Brazil, the U.K., Peru and Germany used DNA sequence data to associate the female sunburst cerulean-satyr, or Caeruleuptychia helios, an Amazonian brush-footed butterfly, with its male counterpart.

Males and females of this group look dramatically different from each other, a phenomenon known as sexual dimorphism, and the species was named and described in 1911 based on the brilliantly iridescent blue males. Rarer than the male, the brown female was considered another species and was recently named and placed in a different genus, Magneuptychia keltoumae.

Continued