A mechanism of color pattern formation in ladybird beetles
Wednesday, September 26, 2018 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
Many ladybirds have attractive color patterns consisting of black and red. This prominent color pattern is thought to function as a warning that indicates to predators that they are very bitter and unpalatable. A research team led by Professor Teruyuki Niimi at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan focused on the multicolored Asian ladybird beetle Harmonia axyridis (also known as the harlequin ladybird), which lives mainly in Siberia and East Asia, and shows >200 color patterns within a species. The team has identified a single gene that regulates such highly diverse ladybird color patterns.