Nabokov and Butterflies

Vladamir Nabokov, famous for writing the novel Lolita, was also a butterfly enthusiast. He passionately collected insects, in particular butterflies, from across the United States and served as the curator of lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In 1945 Nabokov developed a hypothesis for the evolution of the Polyommatus blues group of butterflies, hypothesizing the butterflies traveled from Asia across the Bering Strait in five waves, eventually finding their way as far south as Chile. Scientists contemporary to Nabokov considered his theory far-fetched and Nabokov himself not much more than a meticulous collector of dead bugs (ok, slight exaggeration). Well turns out he was right. Check out this New York Times article for all the details. It's a great read.