Two subspecies of African queen butterflies are evolving into separate species.
By: Rakesh Agrawal, ‘Ridh’
It is said that God created humans from Adam and Eve; meaning for creation—or evolution—both males and females are must. And, what does a species; as beautiful and dazzling as a butterfly does when its male counterparts extinguish?
Well, the species will perish, as most people would say!
Nay, with no males, these butterflies are evolving into separate species, reports Washington Post (See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/07/20/with-no-males-these-butterflies-are-evolving-into-separate-species/)
Nairobi in Kenya is called a hybrid zone for butterflies, where scientists have found that two subspecies of the African queen have no males as the females are infected with a bacterium known as Spiroplasma ixodeti that kills all of their male offspring as their eggs don’t hatch.
But, the female eggs hatch normally, reminding of a popular song, “Oh-oh here she comes. Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up. … She’s a man-eater.”
This is one of many bacteria that commit manslaughter, killing males before their first breaths, unlike many girl children who are killed in wombs before they’re born in India, thanks to the ultrasound technique that tells the sex of the baby in the mother’s fetus.
This new research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, discovered its lethal effects on males hatched by the two subspecies in Nairobi and the researchers discovered that these butterflies have an odd chromosome that may make them susceptible to the microbe’s man-killing ways.
With no males for procreation available, the African queens depend on immigration as males from elsewhere travel into the realm for mating.
And, through this mating, the subspecies are splitting apart, giving birth to a new species that is not because of any environmental changes, but because of this microbe. The study was led by David Smith of the Natural History Museum at Eton College. It lasted for 13 years of field work by teams of scientists from England, Germany, and Nairobi.
The male-killing microbes are not uncommon in nature and, now, the scientists are considering to use these tiny microbes to a good cause like infecting female mosquitoes to control the Zika virus.