How the Easter Egg Weevils got their spots: Phylogenomics reveals Müllerian mimicry in Pachyrhynchus (Coleoptera, Curculionidae)

The evolutionary origins of mimicry in the Easter Egg weevil,
Pachyrhynchus, have fascinated researchers since first noted more than a
century ago by Alfred Russel Wallace. Müllerian mimicry, or mimicry in
which two or more distasteful species look similar, is widespread
throughout the animal kingdom. Given the varied but discrete color
patterns in Pachyrhynchus, this genus presents one of the best
opportunities to study the evolution of both perfect and imperfect
mimicry. We analyzed more than 10,000 UCE loci using a novel partitioning
strategy to resolve the relationships of closely related species in the
genus. Our results indicate that many of the mimetic color patterns
observed in sympatric species are due to convergent evolution. We suggest
that this convergence is driven by positive frequency-dependent selection.