The Moths of Manchester

The  excellent  novel  ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’  by Amor Towles  quotes this beautiful  story about  adaptation. In Manchester , for thousands of years , most of the moths  had white wings and black  flecking. Pitch black varieties  were less than ten percent  of the  total moths . The lighter colouring(  of white  variety )provided them  with camouflage  against  the region’s trees, and they survived.

      But when a large number of factories  started operating in Manchester from 1800 onwards , the barks of the trees  got   covered in black suit.  The  peppered moths with pitch black wings  were camouflaged much better  than those with white wings.  The  moths with white wings were  consumed by predator birds, being highly visible. Within a    hundred years , over 90 percent of moths had  pitch  black  wings in Manchester.

     Moths are the symbols  of  our  ability to adapt to  our circumstances. We should be able to use our skills and traits  which we already have,  to adapt ourselves to the changes in society. Nature has designed  forces of evolution  to ensure that moths and men  have a chance to adapt  over a few decades. Natural selection does not need thousands of years to take place .It has been observed unfolding over the course of a few decades.