BISTON BETULARIA

[Michael Gochfeld]

	The industrial melanism story gained prominence during the time 
I was in college and it had a substantial impact on interesting me and 
others in evolutionary ecology and ecological genetics.  It always 
seemed perfectly reasonable that birds would find the more conspicuous 
(less cryptic) white morphs more easily than the dark morphs. 
	This story had powerful heuristic impact 50 years ago.
	But years later I began to wonder whether there might be other 
factors contributing to the apparent preference (I never doubted the 
preference). Might the increased melanin deposits alter the taste or 
digestability of the moths, for example. 

Mike Gochfeld