Simple and complex, sexually dimorphic retinal mosaic of fritillary butterflies
Abstract
Butterflies have variable sets of spectral photoreceptors that underlie colour vision. The photoreceptor organization may be optimized for the detection of body coloration. Fritillaries (Argynnini) are nymphalid butterflies exhibiting varying degrees of sexual dimorphism in wing coloration. In two sister species, the females have orange ( Argynnis paphia ) and dark wings ( Argynnis sagana ), respectively, while the males of both species have orange wings with large patches of pheromone-producing androconia. In spite of the differences in female coloration, the eyes of both species exhibit an identical sexual dimorphism. The female eyeshine is uniform yellow, while the males have a complex retinal mosaic with yellow and red-reflecting ommatidia. We found the basic set of ultraviolet-, blue- and green-peaking photoreceptors in both sexes. Males additionally have three more photoreceptor classes, peaking in green, yellow and red, respectively. The latter is the basal R9, indirectly measured through hyperpolarizations in the green-peaking R1-2. In many nymphalid tribes, including the closely related Heliconiini, the retinal mosaic is complex in both sexes. We hypothesize that the simple mosaic of female Argynnini is a secondary reduction, possibly driven by the use of olfaction for intraspecific recognition, whereas vision remains the primary sense for the task in the males.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 05, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1098/rstb.2021.0276
Entities
People
- Andrej Meglič
- Gregor Belušič
- Jošt Prevc
- Kentaro Arikawa
- Marko Ilić
- Masaya Yago
- Pei-Ju Chen
- Primož Pirih
Organizations
- Academia Sinica
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Graduate University for Advanced Studies
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Ljubljana University Medical Centre
- Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
- University of Ljubljana
- University of Tokyo