Rosser, a National Geographic Explorer and lead author of the study, revealed that hybridization could lead to the evolution of new species. The research showed that H. elevatus, a canopy flyer found in South American rainforests, had remained distinct from its parental species for around two million years until a DNA mishap occurred approximately 180,000 years ago during a global ice age when the Amazonian rainforest served as a biodiversity refugium.
The discovery of this hybrid species and its parental species is significant, as scientists have long sought to find an animal species that originated from two parental species combining their genomes. Mules are an example of such hybrids. If Charles Darwin had explored further inland when the HMS Beagle docked in Lima in 1835, he would have encountered these species as well.
David Lohman, a professor at the City College of New York who was not involved in the study, praised the findings. He stated that the researchers had demonstrated a phenomenon in nature that many had hypothesized but few had proven. Lohman is part of a team that recently constructed the most comprehensive butterfly tree of life.
Heliconius butterflies are unique in that they consume flower pollen and use it to produce cyanogenic glycosides that make them distasteful to predators. They display bright, high-contrast aposematic coloration that signals their unpalatability to potential threats.