Species of Butterfly Set to Diverge Into Two

I can very vividly remember in the early '70s when it was documented that there are three distinct phases of the snow goose. It was thought, up until then, that there were snows, blues and eagle head geese. No one had seen blues or eagle heads nesting with eggs. It turns out that the life cycle of the snow goose has a yearling goose that has bluish feathers, the following year it loses half or more of the blue feathers and is known as an eagle-head. A three year old is completely white and of breeding age. They all migrate south for the winter.

Canadians knew this and just shook their heads at the biologists from the U.S. There wasn't a good reason for the locals to straighten out the PHD's for all of those years. We just knew in the south that the blues had a lot of pin feathers and were harder to pluck.

I'm going to wait for the truth about the butterfly to emerge, with time.

Ted Allen of LA 7:31PM February 14, 2010