Walk through the rainforests of Ecuador and you might encounter a beautiful butterfly called Heliconius cydno. It's extremely varied in its colours. Even among one subspecies, H.cydno alithea, you can find individuals with white wingbands and those with yellow. Despite their different hues, they are still the same species... but probably not for much longer.
Even though the two forms are genetically similar and live in the same area, Nicola Chamberlain from Harvard University has found that one of them - the yellow version - has developed a preference for mating with butterflies of its own colour. This fussiness has set up an invisible barrier within the butterfly population, where traits that would typically separate sister species - colour and mate preferences - have started to segregate. In time, this is the sort of change that could split the single species into two.
Heliconius butterflies defend themselves with foul chemicals and advertise their distasteful arsenal with bright warning colours on their wings. The group has a penchant for diversity, and even closely related species sport different patterns. But the butterflies are also rampant mimics. Distantly related species have evolved uncanny resemblances so that their warnings complement one another - a predator that learns to avoid one species will avoid all the ones that share the same patterns. It's a mutual protection racket, sealed with colour.
