As forests are cut down, butterflies are losing their colours

This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration

T he world is becoming less colourful. For butterflies, bold and bright wings once meant survival, helping them attract mates and hide from prey. But a new research project suggests that as humans replace rich tropical forests with monochrome, the colour of other creatures is leaching away.

“The colours on a butterfly’s wings are not trivial — they have been designed over millions of years,” says researcher and photographer Roberto García-Roa, who is part of a project in Brazil documenting how habitat loss is bleaching the natural world of colour.

Whether dazzlingly red, deep green or ghostly pale, the richness of a tropical forest provides butterflies with a diver