Blot out and backcross: the butterfly’s genetic secret?

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire A controversial theory claims the reason butterflies and their caterpillars look so dissimilar is down to hybridogenesis

It's hard to imagine a creature less like a butterfly than its own caterpillar. This is particularly true for the peacock butterfly - a blue-eyed beauty blinking through the dog days of summer until it's time to sleep behind the bedroom curtains.

But here comes the peacock caterpillar - like a train made of black polka-dot upholstery armed with great spines, undulating on suckers, propelled by a single idea of destiny behind its blank mask. The last journey the caterpillar takes is alone; it moves away from its writhing knot of siblings in the nettle clump to a safe place to pupate and become something else completely.

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