Date: November 5, 2015
Source: Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research
In the natural world, mimicry
isn't entertainment; it's a deadly serious game spanning a range of senses --
sight, smell and hearing. Some of the most striking visual mimics are
butterflies. Many butterflies become noxious and unpalatable to predators by
acquiring chemical defences from plants they ingest as caterpillars. Other
butterflies mimic the 'aposematic' or warning colouration and conspicuous wing
patterns of these toxic or just plain foul-tasting butterflies.
In a new study, scientists from
the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore and the National
University of Singapore (NUS) investigate how well butterfly mimics resemble
their aposematic models.
Shiyu Su, a PhD student advised
by Krushnamegh Kunte from NCBS and Matthew Lim from NUS, investigated mimetic
butterfly communities called 'butterfly rings' from the Western Ghats of India.
Since butterflies are often eaten by insectivorous birds, her aim was to
understand how similar mimics were to their aposematic models when perceived through
the eyes of bird predators.
The research, which is published
in the November issue of the journal Evolution, reveals some fascinating
forces driving the evolution of butterfly wing mimicry. The first result in the
study indicates that female butterflies are generally better mimics than males.
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