News from the preserves, parks and backyards of Princeton, NJ. The website aims to acquaint Princetonians with our shared natural heritage and the benefits of restoring native diversity and beauty to the many preserved lands in and around Princeton.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Nabakov and Butterflies
Amateur lepidopterists, take heart. Turns out that Vladimir Nabokov, best known as author of Lolita, "had a parallel existence as a self-taught expert on butterflies", as described recently in the NY Times. The article describes a controversial hypothesis he proposed back in 1945 about how a kind of butterfly known as the Polyommatus blues came to the American continent in five successive waves from Asia, over a period of millions of years. Though Nabokov's hypothesis was given little credence during his lifetime, tests using modern gene-sequencing techniques have proven him correct.
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