Butterflies in Japan Exhibiting Abnormalities Due to Radiation

It used to be that insects were thought to be mostly unaffected by radiation.  Butterflies in Japan, however, are proving that theory incorrect, as the article here by BBC news tells:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...

...Scientists found an increase in leg, antennae and wing shape mutations among butterflies collected following the 2011 Fukushima accident.

The link between the mutations and the radioactive material was shown by laboratory experiments, they report...

Studies indicate two alarming factors--abnormalities occurring from eating contaminated food and abnormalities occurring from the offspring of the generation exposed to the most initial radiation.

...Six months later, they again collected adults from the 10 sites and found that butterflies from the Fukushima area showed a mutation rate more than double that of those found sooner after the accident.

The team concluded that this higher rate of mutation came from eating contaminated food, but also from mutations of the parents' genetic material that was passed on to the next generation, even though these mutations were not evident in the previous generations' adult butterflies...

The implications are significant:

...But the findings from their new research show that the radionuclides released from the accident were still affecting the development of the animals, even after the residual radiation in the environment had decayed.

"This study is important and overwhelming in its implications for both the human and biological communities living in Fukushima," explained University of South Carolina biologist Tim Mousseau, who studies the impacts of radiation on animals and plants in Chernobyl and Fukushima, but was not involved in this research...

Good on the Japanese people for holding firm against further nuclear power in their country.  The whole planet should be paying attention.