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Iconic examples include the rapid increase in frequency of the melanic form of the British peppered moth Biston betularia, driven by the sootier and darker environment caused by carbon burning and industrialisation in the late 1800s in the United Kingdom, and the mimetic radiation of Heliconius butterflies, among others.

Over the past two decades, scientists discovered that the majority of melanic wing colour variants are controlled by a single genomic region surrounding the protein-coding gene 'cortex'.

Dr Tian, the lead author of this work said, "Piles of evidence from previous studies cast doubt on whether cortex was really the melanic colour switch, which inspired me to test the function of some other genomic features within this genomic region -- miRNAs."

This indicated that mir-193, not cortex or any other nearby gene, is the key melanic colour regulator across these Lepidoptera.

Surprisingly, mir-193 was also found to control melanic colouration in these flies, suggesting a deeply conserved role for mir-193 beyond Lepidoptera.