Off colour Brazil's fading butterflies reveal the dangers of habitat loss

Bold and bright wings once meant survival for butterflies, helping them attract mates and avoid predators. But as humans replace rich tropical forests with monochrome landscapes, the colour of the natural world is leaching away.

- Phoebe Weston

“The colours on a butterfly’s wings are not trivial - they have been designed over millions of years,” said Roberto García-Roa, a researcher and photographer who is part of a project in Brazil documenting how habitat loss is bleaching the natural world.

The scientists found that Amiga arnaca butterflies in a eucalyptus plantation were less colourful than those in native forests.

Whether dazzlingly red, deep green or ghostly pale, the richness of a tropical forest provides butterflies with a diversity of habitats in which to communicate, camouflage and reproduce.

However, as humans replace tropical forests with environments such as eucalyptus monocultures, those requirements are changing. In a plantation, the ecological backdrop is stripped bare and drab species do better. Being bland becomes an advantage.

The difference is stark. “You feel alive in the tropical forest, everything is wild - you never know what you are going to find,” said García-Roa. “When you arrive at a eucalyptus plantation it’s very frustrating - you can feel that things are not happening as they should be in a natural ecosystem. Animals are not around and sounds are not as they should be.”