The Butterfly Was a Rare One. Then Someone Noticed Paint

The tale of Australia's most audacious butterfly theft begins in 1922 in the peaks of Barrington Tops, where naturalist Johnny Hopson found a dead, yet unnamed butterfly—a find that would later become a prized specimen, as detailed in Walter Marsh's report in the Guardian. Hopson, aka the "Father of the Tops," left his collection to the Australian Museum, but that one special butterfly—the so-called "flame hairstreak"—ended up in the hands of famed collector Dr. Gustavus Athol Waterhouse. Fast-forward to 2016, when Australian National University scientist Michael Braby spotted something odd: That flame hairstreak wasn't an evolutionary marvel but a painted fake. This discovery led to a tangled web connecting the dots to the butterfly world's most infamous crime: a series of 1947 museum heists that saw more than 3,000 rare specimens disappear from Australia's top museums.

The culprit? Colin Wyatt, a British adventurer who charmed his way into Australia's scientific circles, befriending everyone from Waterhouse to museum staff. Wyatt's wanderings and charisma masked a compulsive streak: He pilfered collections under the guise of research, eventually shipping the loot to his mom's house in England. Wyatt later blamed his spree on personal woes and confessed when authorities arrived. Most of the butterflies were eventually returned that same year, but the legacy of the heist lingers. Some stolen specimens still surface in foreign collections, and the scandal forced museums to reckon with how they safeguard—and acquire—natural treasures. As for Hobson's real flame hairstreak: It was eventually found, tagged with a now-infamous yellow label marking its connection to one of natural history's most curious crime sagas. More here.