8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?

Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.

Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.

The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.

Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.

A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html

#Butterflies #Science #Nature #Memory