Hosts: Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello
Nels and Vincent continue with an emerging sub-theme of TWiEVO – organisms with wings – as they reveal how enhancer shuffling produces diverse butterfly wing patterns.
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Download TWiEVO 6 (75 MB .mp3, 103 min)
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Links for this episode
- Enhancer shuffling for butterfly wing patterns (PLoS Biol)
- Batesian mimicry (Wikipedia)
- Müllerian mimicry (Wikipedia)
- Image credit
- Letters read on TWiEVO 6
Science Picks
Nels – Hill Country Science Mill
Vincent – The Butterfly Conservatory
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Stephen – Darwin Legacy
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At the end of the episode Dr. Racaniello asked about other forms of mimicry. Someone posted a video of a caterpillar mimicking a snake, and I was incredulous, then went looking for evidence. I found these links:
https://scienceisland.org/caterpillar-mimics-snake-behavior-to-scare-predators/
http://www.odditycentral.com/animals/harmless-caterpillar-mimics-menacing-snake-head-to-fool-predators.html
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/nature-blows-my-mind-caterpillar-looks-like-snake-hemeroplanes-triptolemus.html
Amazing stuff!