In order to solve the mystery of these pattern patterns, Kiyota Miyazawa, an invited researcher at the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, first analyzed the relationships between pattern motifs through an unprecedented large-scale pattern analysis of more than 18,000 species of fish. Examined.As a result, surprisingly, a complex "maze pattern" occurs when species with simple light-colored spots (such as white polka dots on a black background) and species with dark-colored spots (such as black polka dots on a white background) are closely related. I found a tendency for species with "" to appear easily.

　Crossbreeding simulations on a computer also provided results to explain this.By multiplying light-colored spots and dark-colored spots and "mixing" the spot pattern, a maze pattern appears in the virtual hybrids that are born.

　From this, Dr. Miyazawa hypothesized that "interspecific crosses" between species with light-colored spots and species with dark-colored spots resulted in the emergence of animals with maze patterns due to the mixing of patterns.Then, as a result of analyzing the pattern pattern and genomic information of fellow puffer fish and testing this hypothesis, multiple fish with a maze pattern were actually found to be light-colored spots and dark-colored spots. It turned out to be from a cross.

　The mechanism by which a complex pattern is created by "mixing" simple patterns, which was clarified in this study, has also occurred in other major fish and may be involved in the creation of diversity of pattern patterns. There is.This result is expected to be an important hint in solving the mystery of how various animal patterns have evolved.

Paper information:[Science Advances] Pattern blending enriches the diversity of animal colorsations