Effect of bright wing color of males on other males in Favonius taxila (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) with sexual dimorphism in wing color

Abstract

To examine the effect of wing colors of Favonius taxila males on other males, an intact bright butterfly model or a dull butterfly model whose wing scales had been dislodged was placed in a potential territory, and the behavior of invading males was recorded. The invader showed decreased probability of landing there with a bright model in place compared with a dull model, and exhibited complex flights with frequent turning for a bright model, in contrast to simple flights with relatively linear paths for a dull model. These results support the idea of intrasexual selection in which bright colors of males' wings have evolved through male-male interactions.

Wing Scale Orientation Alters Reflection Directions in the Green Hairstreak Chrysozephyrus smaragdinus (Lycaenidae; Lepidoptera)

“…Color sense in butterflies is widely known (Arikawa et al, 1987;Bernard and Remington, 1991;Qiu and Arikawa, 2003), including Theclini species (Imafuku and Tsuji, 2008;Imafuku, 2013). Further, it has been observed that males of the present species discriminated a brown wing model of the female from a green wing model of the male (Imafuku and Kitamura, 2015), and that males of the closely related Favonius taxila (Bremer) alit on a site with a bright green male model less frequently than on a site with a dull green male model (Imafuku and Hirose, 2016), suggesting that the bright wing color of males of this species has a negative effect on establishment of territories by conspecific males.…”