Dazzling but man-eaters. Scientists discovered in Nairobi, the heart of Kenya, that two subspecies of the African queen have no males. This is because the females are infected with a bacterium known as Spiroplasma ixodeti that kills 100 percent of their male offspring.
In result, eggs that contain male offspring don't hatch at all. What's worse is that, once the female eggs hatch, their brothers are among their first meals.
Though cannibalistic, according to Richard ffrench-Constant -- a professor of molecular natural history at the University of Exeter and the author of the study, the sisters can never be blamed for its actions since the cannibalistic behavior means that the males are already dying in their eggs.
Spiroplasma ixodeti is one of many bacteria that commit manslaughter, killing males before their first breaths. It's so common in nature that scientists have considered putting the tiny microbes to good use, such as infecting female mosquitoes to control the Zika virus.
Although the microbe is fairly widespread, it had not been found to have an effect on the pretty yellow-winged African queen butterfly that exists throughout East Africa.
The researchers discovered that these butterflies have an odd chromosome that may make them susceptible to the microbe's man-killing ways.
With no males, African queens manage to procreate when males from elsewhere for migration.
The area, which is now called as the hybrid zone, is effectively zero males, thereby creating a barrier with a new species on their side.
The study was led by David Smith, who worked at the Natural History Museum at Eton College, when the work was carried out. The research took 13 years of field work by teams of scientists from England, Germany and Nairobi. Ian Gordon, a researcher at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi, carefully recorded the sex and color pattern of butterflies around Nairobi.
Source: The Washington Post
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