The Indian Wanderer butterfly
Why in news :
- In a five-year study, scientists of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bengaluru have discovered secrets of a long evolutionary game through which butterflies come to warn, fool, and escape their predators using traits such as wing colour patterns and even flight behaviour.
- The scientists and botanists investigated the butterfly mimetic communities of the Western Ghats.
- They said that mimicry is an adaptive phenomenon, and in mimicry, a palatable organism resembles an unpalatable organism to deceive predators.
- Mimicry in butterflies is not limited to the resemblance in wing colour patterns alone, as some mimics have also evolved to imitate the flight behaviours of model species.
- They added that these mimetic communities are generally common in tropical and subtropical biodiversity hotspots.
About The Indian Wanderer butterfly :
- The common wanderer also known as Indian wanderer, is a medium-sized butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites.
- It is found in India.
The Indian Wanderer butterfly
- The Indian Wanderer butterfly in which only females are mimetic and males are not.
Syllabus : Prelims-Environment
