War and evolution of chemical fraud

2008/01/07 Roa Zubia, Guillermo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Eboluzioa
• Zoologia

The interaction between the Maculinea alcon butterfly and the ants of the genus Myrmica is based on fraud. The caterpillars of the butterfly deceive the ants, presenting them as their beldaras. To do this, they mimic the chemistry of the skin of ants.

It is the butterfly in which it is specialized; the better the simulation, the more success it will have. If you want to endure you have to deceive the ant. But for the ant the butterfly is parasitic, so you have to separate the two types of caterpillar. For this, the surface chemistry of ants changes.

It is a chemical war, the butterfly mimics the chemistry of the ant and the ant changes it to differentiate it from the butterfly. And so, little by little, they evolve together. A team of zoologists from the University of Copenhagen has researched this relationship and published the research results in the journal Science. Other zoologists consider research to be important because they are developing many theories of species coevolution. However, many cases have not been investigated in practice.

Photo: David Nash