A novelist's keen eye for butterflies

Vladimir Nabokov may be best known as the author of classic novels like "Lolita" and "Pale Fire." But he was also a self-taught expert on butterflies.

Nabokov was the curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In 1945, he formulated a hypothesis for the evolution of a group of butterflies known as the Polyommatus blues. He envisioned them coming to the New World from Asia over millions of years in waves.

Few lepidopterists took his ideas seriously. But in the years since his death in 1977, his scientific reputation has grown. And over the past 10 years, a team of scientists has been applying gene-sequencing technology to his hypothesis. In January, in The Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, they reported that Nabokov was absolutely right.