Common Mormon butterfly WIKIPEDIA, MUHAMMAD MAHDI KARIMFemale Common Mormon butterflies (Papilio polytes) are a varied lot. Some look like the black-and-white males, but others mimic the more colorful toxic swallowtail butterflies to fool predators into thinking that they are similarly distasteful.
The mimetic females come in three distinct patterns and, for decades, scientists believed that these different disguises were controlled by a “supergene”—a cluster of genes that each control different parts of the wings, but are inherited as a single block.
But Krushnamegh Kunte from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, has now shown that the supposed supergene is, in fact, a single gene called doublesex. By expressing different versions of the gene at different levels, the butterflies can radically switch their wing patterns to mimic many different species. Kunte’s results are published today (March 5) in Nature.
The doublesex discovery is doubly surprising because this gene already has a well-defined role: it sends developing butterflies down either a male or female path. ...
