TOKYO -- Researchers in Japan have found signs of mutation in butterflies, signaling one of the first indications of change to the local ecosystem as a result of last year's nuclear accident in ...

By LiveScience Published August 14, 2012 11:20am EDT| Updated January 13, 2015 1:55pm EST ...

Updated: Aug 14, 2012 / 10:07 AM MDT Wrinkled wings, changes in wing size, color pattern and spots are among symptoms being displayed by mutant butterflies near a Japanese nuclear plant.

Scientists have undertaken a decade-long conservation project to save a species of butterfly in its only known Japanese habitat, Tsushima Island.

IIJIMA, Japan – Since the last ice age, a butterfly species called the Reverdin’s blue (Plebejus argyrognomon, known as miyamashijimi in Japanese), has survived in the nation’s grasslands ...

Ceylon Blue Glassy Tiger butterflies are seen overwintering on branches in a forest on Amami Oshima Island in the southern Japan prefecture of Kagoshima on Jan. 8, 2020.

At the time of the disaster in March 2011, pale grass blue butterflies (Zizeeria maha) were overwintering as larvae. Two months later, Otaki and his colleagues collected adult butterflies from 10 ...