Researchers have experimentally altered moth wing shapes for the first time, using sulfated polysaccharides to widen luna moth tails and reshape eyespots. The study, published in Evolution & Development by Florida Museum of Natural History researcher Andrei Sourakov, supports theories about how butterflies sculpt their wings.
Lepidoptera expert Andrei Sourakov spent seven years hand-rearing more than 700 luna and polyphemus moths from egg to adulthood, administering heparin and dextran sulfate at precise developmental windows. According to Phys, the intervention produced transformations dramatic enough to turn camouflaged wing patterns into conspicuous warning displays within a single generation of treatment. The study was published in the journal Evolution & Development under the DOI 10.1111/ede.70058.
Chemical Cues Alter Eyespots in Giant Silk Moths
The addition of external heparin and dextran sulfate augments wnt protein activity. Sourakov previously studied how eyespots react to these compounds across different species, noting that butterfly eyespots in nymphalids sit along the wing margin and delete entirely when exposed to heparin during early development. By contrast, when Sourakov administered heparin to giant silk moths in earlier work, their eyespots grew bigger.
What’s amazing to me, and what I learned from this study, is how easy it is for these features to go from one state to another.
Testing Growth Models on Luna Moths
Sourakov suspects the wingless gene was independently co-opted by natural selection to evolve wing tails in both moths and butterflies. Because luna moth tails are much longer and affect flight dynamics, Sourakov deduced that wingless turns on during specific developmental stages in these species while remaining inactive at that stage in most others.