Peppered Moth


 
Peppered MothsBritain’s peppered moth has long served as an evolution icon. This month, a new genetic discovery unravels the moth’s once iconic status. As ScienceDaily reports –

“Researchers from the University of Liverpool, have identified and dated the genetic mutation that gave rise to the black form of the peppered moth, which spread rapidly during Britain’s industrial revolution. The new findings solve a crucial missing piece of the puzzle in this iconic textbook example of evolution by natural selection.”

Peppered moths are notable for their unique speckled range of colors from light, shades of gray, to nearly black. The dark moths are also known as melanics or carbonaria. ScienceDaily’s crucial missing piece of evidence, the “jumping gene,” was published this month in the prestigious journal Nature. “From time to time,” however, according to Jerry Coyne, a University of Chicago evolution scientist,

“evolutionists re-examine a classical experimental study and find, to their horror, that it is flawed.”

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