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World’s biggest butterfly is low on genetic diversity

An endangered butterfly, found only in Papua New Guinea, has had a small population for a million years.
Ornithoptera alexandrae, Queen Alexandra's birdwing butterfly.

Rare beauty: the Queen Alexandra’s birdwing can have a wingspan of more than 28 centimetres. Credit: Alamy

The world’s largest butterfly has been rare for a million years, according to a genetic analysis1.

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Nature 616, 222 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00908-2

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 05 April 2023: The butterfly depicted in an earlier version of this article was incorrectly labelled as a Queen Alexandra’s birdwing.

References

  1. Reboud, E. L. et al. Gen. Biol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evad040 (2023).

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