Seeing Through the Mimicry of <i>Papilio bootes</i> by Combining Computer-Aided and Human Eyesight Morphological Comparisons.

ABSTRACT: The Tailed Redbreast Papilio bootes exhibits a tendency for specific mimicry of sympatric Byasa species across its distribution range, but this phenomenon has not yet been quantitatively analysed. To address this intriguing example of Batesian mimicry, the present study focused on three provinces (Yunnan, Sichuan, and Shaanxi) in West China, which have high taxonomic diversity of both P. bootes and Byasa. We combined computer-aided and human eyesight morphological comparisons to reveal the visual similarity between five subspecies of P. bootes and 13 species of Byasa. Our findings demonstrate that the subspecies mindoni and parcesquamata of P. bootes in the western part of its range primarily mimic Byasa species with fou

SUBMITTER: Xie YR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12572630 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature