Microbial organisms are intrinsically fascinating and visually stunning. They are architects, builders, travellers, parasites, hunters, scavengers, and prey. They have sex lives and mating rituals. They build communities and they go it alone. They are as complex in terms of behavior and lifestyle as any plant or animal, yet most of us never get to see them. Pondlife is an effort to document these organisms as the complex living creatures that they are, and make them accessible and appealing to wide audiences.

Butterfly wings present complex patterns that play many roles like warnings for predators or camouflage. We are interested in the genes behind those patterns in order to understand how morphological complexity develops and evolves. Here, I would show you how single genes can produce dramatic evolutionary shifts in butterfly wings.