Caption: The vivid colors and designs animals use to interact with their environments is one of nature's wonders. But how they build those designs from scratch and deploy color has also been one of nature's most closely held secrets. This North American fruit fly, Drosophila guttifera, has now helped a team of scientists in the laboratory of UW-Madison molecular biologist Sean Carroll figure out how complex color patterns are made at the most basic level.
Photo: provided by Nicolas Gompel and Sean Carroll
Date: February 2010
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