The hot and cold of butterfly dancing  Hypothesis: courtship
behaviour in squinting bush brown butterflies ( Bicyclus
anynana) is related to the climate they experienced when they
were mere caterpillars  I stumbled across a very interesting
piece of work that I plan to write about (just as soon as I get
my hands on the paper). Two researchers, Kathleen Prudic and
Antónia Monteiro, at Yale University were curious as to why both
male and female squinting bush brown butterflies, Bicyclus
anynana, sport attractive spots on their wings -- a character
that is usually reserved for males who do the courting. They
found that when the caterpillars (larvae) were raised in warmer
and wetter conditions, the male butterflies performed mating
dances to attract females. But when butterflies developed in
drier, cooler temperatures, it was the females who danced for
the males.  In some animals, males and females look the same,
even developing the same sexual ornaments (wing spots in
butterflies, for example). There are several