Morphological Murals: The Scaling and Allometry of Butterfly Wing Patterns.

The color patterns of butterflies moths are exceptionally diverse, but are very stable within a species, so that most species can be identified on the basis of their color pattern alone. The color pattern is established in the wing imaginal disc during a prolonged period of growth and differentiation, beginning during the last larval instar and ending during the first few days of the pupal stage. During this period, a variety of diffusion and reaction-diffusion signaling mechanisms determine the positions and sizes of the various elements that make up the overall color pattern.