Swallowtail Butterflies Use Multiple Visual Cues to Select Oviposition Sites.

ABSTRACT: Flower-foraging Japanese yellow swallowtail butterflies, Papilio xuthus, exhibit sophisticated visual abilities. When ovipositing, females presumably attempt to select suitable leaves to support the growth of their larval offspring. We first established that butterflies indeed select particular leaves on which to lay eggs; when presented with a single Citrus tree, butterflies significantly favored two out of 102 leaves for oviposition. These preferences were observed across many individuals, implying that they were not merely idiosyncratic, but rather based on properties of the leaves in question. Because the butterflies descended towards the leaves rather directly from a distance, we hypothesized that they base their selection on visual cues. We measured five morphological properties

SUBMITTER: Nagaya H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8622024 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature