Flying Young Cannibals: Butterflies Eat Siblings, As Infected Give Birth To Cannibals

​Infected tropical butterflies are giving birth to cannibals which is splitting their species in two.

A study found that a microbe is infecting two subspecies of the African Queen butterfly, which causes male offspring produced to never hatch.

As a result, hungry sisters then eat their unborn brothers - halting the reproduction of the butterflies in the affected areas.

This is causing two subspecies of butterfly to become two non-interbreeding species.

Professor Richard Ffrench-Constant, from Exeter University, said: "It appears that the butterfly's susceptibility to the male-killing microbe is driving the separation of the two butterflies into two true species.

"These tiny microbes are therefore having a major effect on sex and death in this fascinating butterfly."

While the microbe has no effect on most African Queen butterflies, it badly damages the two subspecies which are found in the area around Nairobi in Kenya.

While the tiny male caterpillars are formed, they cannot hatch from the egg because they are apparently too weak.

Those butterflies infected with the microbe have dramatically changed chromosomes - a non-sex chromosome fused with a sex chromosome, to form a new chromosome called "neo W".

Prof Ffrench-Constant added: "We tend to think of new species coming about due to environmental changes but here its clearly the microbe that is driving these two subspecies apart."

Prof Walther Traut, from the University of Lubbek, said it is like a "smoking gun" for the way species "become distinct".

He said: "It is rare that we can find the molecular basis for how species develop."

It is not clear how the butterflies are infected, or how the molecule travels.

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