Butterfly eyespots evolved via cooption of an ancestral gene-regulatory network that also patterns antennae, legs, and wings

Abstract

Significance Where do butterfly eyespots come from? One of the long-standing questions in the field of evolution concerns addressing where novel complex traits come from. Here we show that butterfly eyespots, a novel complex trait, likely originated from the redeployment of a preexisting gene-regulatory network regulating antennae, legs, and wings, to novel locations on the wing.