The continuing battle between a butterfly and the bacteria that nearly wiped out all the insect species' males has taken a sudden and unexpected turn.
In just a few years, the butterfly has evolved a way to evade the bacteria's tightly controlling grip.
The findings show that evolution can strike in a flash, even after long periods of time with little change
For at least a century, according to the experts, bacteria called Wolbachia had been playing puppet master with Hypolimnas bolina butterflies found on two Samoan islands
But males made a comeback in 2006, the researchers found, with nearly as many of them as females.
The shift happened in five years or less—just ten generations for the butterflies—according to the new study, which will appear tomorrow in the journal Science.
This is a "very, very fast evolutionary change, possibly the fastest ever monitored," Charlat said.
clipped from: news.nationalgeographic.com 