How Butterflies Came To Look Like Dead Leaves

image credit

The secret of how butterflies came to look like leaves may have been revealed - fittingly, by an insect that gave wings to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The question of how the closed wings of dead leaf (or oakleaf) butterflies from the Kallima genus came to perfectly resemble brown leaves - from their veins down to tiny fungus spots - has been hotly debated.

Now Japanese scientists from the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Ibaraki claim to have discovered that Kallima butterflies went through at least four distinct intermediate forms before evolving into species that disguise themselves as leaves.