Tales of Melanic Swallowtails.

[mothylator]

Aug 27, 2019 11:48:57 GMT Adam Cotton said:

I understand these are chemically induced by injecting the soft pupa with something. I would be interested to hear more about such experiments, although I wouldn't want to own one myself.

Adam.

I know about Sodium Tungstate, its effects as a general protein‐tyrosine phosphatase (PTPase) inhibitor have been studied in many species (including mammals), and some of its species-specific effects worked out to an extent.
I agree with earlier comments about its inability to producing a full-on melanic "environmental" ab., it doesn't work on the genome to replicate a single- or several-gene mutations. More like extreme thermal-shock [sic] effects. Note that in some species it induces heat-induced variations, others cold-shock abs. 

Here is one of the earlier papers by Hotaki et al. (2004)
More here (abstract 2005).
There's a shedload of information in pay-as-you-go literature which I've not read.
Paul Martin in UK has a very nice teaching drawer populated with specimens from an experimental study by a UK researcher.
Some European ab. breeders have demonstrated incredible control of ab.creation using Na Tungstate and possibly additional thermal manipulation for demonstration display - completely unnatural creations, mimicking extremes of natural possibilities no doubt, but very very impressive.
Personally, I have no problem owning such specimens, though I only have one - just so long as I know, and I will always curate and display to show, that they are induced abs., and like thermal shock abs. are unnatural (-30C to +40C shocks are not environmentally common), but scientifically informative about the processes involved in wing colouration.