Increasing frequency of the typical form of the peppered moth in Manchester

Abstract

THE murk of nineteenth-century Manchester fostered the melanic form carbonaria of the peppered moth, Biston betularia (L.). The subsequent spread of this form, at the expense of the pale coloured typicals, throughout industrial regions in Britain and elsewhere in western Europe, is a striking example of rapid evolutionary response to a changing environment. © 1970 Nature Publishing Group.