Read the full story at Fast Company.
You are looking at the most complete map of butterflies ever made, a graphic that traces the species’ evolutionary tree back 120 million years. In total, researchers classified 207 species, after analyzing 352 genetic markers. It’s a fascinating time travel that has led to a few surprising discoveries.
The infographic accompanies a study published in the journal Current Biology by an international team of lepidopterists, led by Florida Museum of Natural History’s researcher Dr. Akito Kawahara. It covers 35 times more genetic data and three times as many taxonomic groups as the largest previous study to create “the first comprehensive map of butterfly evolution,” Kawahara told Sci-News.
