Topic summary
Mourning cloak
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Nymphalis antiopa.
Research
Mourning cloak butterflies have been a part of some epigenetics experiments testing to determine if the environment affects certain butterfly phenotypic characteristics. Scientists hypothesized that traumatic heat or cold shocks "during a critical period of its development can cause profound changes". The first experiments occurred in the 1890s. The mourning cloaks were temperature shocked at specific times in their development, which led to differences in pupae color. It was later learned that the color change was due to hormonal changes in response to varying temperatures.