Guantanamo Bay - a wonderful place for butterflies

Don't worry about the inmates at the Guantanamo Bay naval base - concentrate on the butterflies. That's the motto of a team of University of Florida scientists who have discovered a vast diversity of butterflies and moths on the apart of Cuba leased to the United States back in 1903.According to the researchers the land has unintentionally become a wildlife refuge, offering them the opportunity to better understand the island’s natural habitats. Located in the southeast corner of Cuba, its unique and complex geological history of volcanic activity, erosion and shifting sea levels resulted in geological deposits closely associated with marine environments.
“We are comparing the moths and butterflies collected at GTMO to those recorded from the U.S., Bahamas, other nearby islands and Central America,” said study co-author Jacqueline Y. Miller, curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity on the UF campus.
“With the historical geology of the area, there are some potentially new species and such surveys enable us to better understand the evolutionary history of butterflies and moths.”

Just thought you'd like to know that something good is coming out of Guantanamo Bay.

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