The Australian lycaenid butterfly Jalmenus evagoras has iridescent wings that are sexually dimorphic, spectrally and in their degree of polarization, suggesting that these properties are likely to be ...important in mate recognition. We first describe the results of a field experiment showing that free-flying individuals of J. evagoras discriminate between visual stimuli that vary in polarization content in blue wavelengths but not in others. We then present detailed reflectance spectrophotometry measurements of the polarization content of male and female wings, showing that female wings exhibit blue-shifted reflectance, with a lower degree of polarization relative to male wings. Finally, we describe a novel method for measuring alignment of ommatidial arrays: by measuring variation of depolarized eyeshine intensity from patches of ommatidia as a function of eye rotation, we show that (a) individual rhabdoms contain mutually perpendicular microvilli; (b) many rhabdoms in the array have their microvilli misaligned with respect to neighboring rhabdoms by as much as 45 deg; and (c) the misaligned ommatidia are useful for robust polarization detection. By mapping the distribution of the ommatidial misalignments in eye patches of J. evagoras, we show that males and females exhibit differences in the extent to which ommatidia are aligned. Both the number of misaligned ommatidia suitable for robust polarization detection and the number of aligned ommatidia suitable for edge detection vary with respect to both sex and eye patch elevation. Thus, J. evagoras exhibits finely tuned ommatidial arrays suitable for perception of polarized signals, likely to match sex-specific life history differences in the utility of polarized signals.
A new species, Cigaritis conjuncta sp. nov. (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), is described based on five male and four female specimens from Honey Valley, Kodagu District, Karnataka, which is part of the ...Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India. Cigaritis conjuncta sp. nov. is distinguished from all other congeners in India and Sri Lanka based on the following combination of diagnostic characters in the male: (a) dorsal forewing outer half, costal margin and nearly upper half of the cell black without orange markings, the remaining wing shining deep blue, (b) dorsal hindwing tornus pale orange-red with two black spots, (c) ventral forewing bands at end of discal cell conjoined, and (e) ventral hindwing subbasal and discal bands composed of spots that are not separated but conjoined to form broad bands that have irregular outlines, leaving only a narrow background colour in between. Female is similar on the ventral side, but entirely dark brown above. Male and female genitalia are dissected and figured for two paratypes of each sex, and natural history notes on the species are provided.
Although the taxonomy of the ca 18 000 species of butterflies and skippers is well known, the family-level relationships are still debated. Here, we present, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive ...phylogenetic analysis of the superfamilies Papilionoidea, Hesperioidea and Hedyloidea to date based on morphological and molecular data. We reconstructed their phylogenetic relationships using parsimony and Bayesian approaches. We estimated times and rates of diversification along lineages in order to reconstruct their evolutionary history. Our results suggest that the butterflies, as traditionally understood, are paraphyletic, with Papilionidae being the sister-group to Hesperioidea, Hedyloidea and all other butterflies. Hence, the families in the current three superfamilies should be placed in a single superfamily Papilionoidea. In addition, we find that Hedylidae is sister to Hesperiidae, and this novel relationship is supported by two morphological characters. The families diverged in the Early Cretaceous but diversified after the Cretaceous–Palaeogene event. The diversification of butterflies is characterized by a slow speciation rate in the lineage leading to Baronia brevicornis, a period of stasis by the skippers after divergence and a burst of diversification in the lineages leading to Nymphalidae, Riodinidae and Lycaenidae.
That chromosomal rearrangements may play an important role in maintaining postzygotic isolation between well-established species is part of the standard theory of speciation. However, little evidence ...exists on the role of karyotypic change in speciation itselfâin the establishment of reproductive barriers between previously interbreeding populations. The large genus Agrodiaetus (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) provides a model system to study this question. Agrodiaetus butterflies exhibit unusual interspecific diversity in chromosome number, from n = 10 to n = 134; in contrast, the majority of lycaenid butterflies have n = 23/24. We analyzed the evolution of karyotypic diversity by mapping chromosome numbers on a thoroughly sampled mitochondrial phylogeny of the genus. Karyotypic differences accumulate gradually between allopatric sister taxa, but more rapidly between sympatric sister taxa. Overall, sympatric sister taxa have a higher average karyotypic diversity than allopatric sister taxa. Differential fusion of diverged populations may account for this pattern because the degree of karyotypic difference acquired between allopatric populations may determine whether they will persist as nascent biological species in secondary sympatry. This study therefore finds evidence of a direct role for chromosomal rearrangements in the final stages of animal speciation. Rapid karyotypic diversification is likely to have contributed to the explosive speciation rate observed in Agrodiaetus, 1.6 species per million years.
Deudorix livia (Klug, 1834) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) is one of the most serious lepidopteran insect pests attacking pomegranate fruit around the world, including Egypt (Assiut Governorate, Upper ...Egypt). To create an effective program (IPM) to control such harmful pests, accurate identification of the pest morphology and genetic structure is essential. Studies on the morphogenetics of this pest are scarce. So, the goal of this research is to identify it both morphologically and genetically. Pomegranate butterfly immature stages were collected from infested pomegranate fruits and reared in the laboratory until the adult's emergence. By using light and scanning electron microscopy, some morphological structures of males and females were studied. DNA was extracted from the legs of a pomegranate butterfly adult. Also, PCR was conducted by using the mitochondrial CO1 gene for sequencing and phylogenetic tests. The results show that the body scales are a mixture of dark and light gray on the dorsal side and white on the ventral side in both sexes. The average male body length (BL) was 11.674 ± 0.299 mm and was 11.458 ± 1.001 mm for the females. The wing venation is similar in both sexes. For the first time, a partial sequence of the mitochondrial CO1 gene in D. livia was deposited in GenBank (MW463927).
A new species of the genus Phengaris Doherty, 1891 (s. str.), namely Phengaris chloe sp. nov., has been discovered in Wuyi Mountain National Park, E. China. This species is markedly different from ...the other members in the genus Phengaris Doherty, 1891 (s. str.) and can be identified by the following characteristics: Forewing without markings in the distal of space CuA1 and CuA2, the marginal marking of underside wings weaker than other species in this genus and the distinct short protuberance at distal of valve. Photographs of adults and male genitalia are provided. A key to the Phengaris (s. str.) species based on wing pattern and male genitalia morphology is presented.
Two Fabaceae in the Florida Keys, Pithecellobium keyense Coker and Guilandina bonduc Griseb., have been of interest because they are the larval host plants for the endangered Miami blue buterfy ...(Cyclargus thomasi bethunebakeri Comstock & Huntngton; Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). As a part of ongoing research and conservation for this buterfy, wild host plant material has been periodically collected in order to supplement a captve colony of C. t. bethunebakeri located in Gainesville, Florida, USA. In examining this plant material, 26 lepidopterans were detected, including several host records, a new contnental record, and 2 likely undescribed species, 1 Aristotelia (Gelechiidae) and 1 Crocidosema (Tortricidae). Our results expand the geographic, life-history, and taxonomic understanding of lepidopteran herbivores that use P. keyense and G. bonduc in South Florida.
The outer surface of the facet lenses in the compound eyes of moths consists of an array of excessive cuticular protuberances, termed corneal nipples. We have investigated the moth-eye corneal nipple ...array of the facet lenses of 19 diurnal butterfly species by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscope, as well as by optical modelling. The nipples appeared to be arranged in domains with almost crystalline, hexagonal packing. The nipple distances were found to vary only slightly, ranging from about 180 to 240 nm, but the nipple heights varied between 0 (papilionids) and 230 nm (a nymphalid), in good agreement with previous work. The nipples create an interface with a gradient refractive index between that of air and the facet lens material, because their distance is distinctly smaller than the wavelength of light. The gradient in the refractive index was deduced from effective medium theory. By dividing the height of the nipple layer into 100 thin slices, an optical multilayer model could be applied to calculate the reflectance of the facet lenses as a function of height, polarization and angle of incidence. The reflectance progressively diminished with increased nipple height. Nipples with a paraboloid shape and height 250 nm, touching each other at the base, virtually completely reduced the reflectance for normally incident light. The calculated dependence of the reflectance on polarization and angle of incidence agreed well with experimental data, underscoring the validity of the modelling. The corneal nipples presumably mainly function to reduce the eye glare of moths that are inactive during the day, so to make them less visible for predators. Moths are probably ancestral to the diurnal butterflies, suggesting that the reduced size of the nipples of most butterfly species indicates a vanishing trait. This effect is extreme in papilionids, which have virtually absent nipples, in line with their highly developed status. A similar evolutionary development can be noticed for the tapetum of the ommatidia of lepidopteran eyes. It is most elaborate in moth-eyes, but strongly reduced in most diurnal butterflies and absent in papilionids.
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