Alaska is home to 75 to 80 species of butterflies, with the majority being found in Anchorage and the nearby Chugach Mountains. In warmer climates, butterflies go through their life cycles in a matter of weeks, while Alaskan butterflies can live over a year.
One more species of native Alaskan butterfly is about to be added to the list of Alaskan butterflies. Belonging to a group of butterflies called the Arctics, the Tanana Arctic, Oeneis tanana, was found in the spruce and aspen forests of the Tanana-Yukon River Basin, a region that remained largely unfrozen during the last Ice Age.
Males (on the left) and females (on the right) of Oeneis chryxus from Yukon Territory, Canada.
Andrew Warren
Andrew Warren of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History told Escience News,
“Scientists who study plants and fish have suggested that unglaciated parts of ancient Alaska known as Beringia, including the strip of land that once connected Asia and what’s now Alaska, served as a refuge where plants and animals waited out the last ice age and then moved eastward or southward from there. This is potentially a supporting piece of evidence for that.”
What is interesting is that scientists have had the Tanana in their collections, but never thought of them as a separate species because they were so similar to Chryxus. But Warren noticed some distinct differences in the two species. One big difference was in the wings, with the Tanana’s appearing darker and looking frosted on the ends.
Further DNA studies show that the Tanana Arctic species closely resembled the DNA makeups of the White-veined Arctics and the Chryxus Arctics. This led to the question of why the ancient species has been reemerging. It was deemed possible that due to climate change, the Arctic species has been regressing back to its origins.
The discovery of the new species and analysis of Tanana Arctic was profiled [pdf] in the Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera.
