Figures
Courtship display of a male clearwing butterfly.
All male ithomiine butterflies bear androconial "hairs" on the hindwing, which are actually a cluster of highly modified wing scales, erected during courtship displays. Yellow stripes on a black background are a signal to predators that this Napeogenes inachia, as well as nine other co-mimic species that have converged in both wing pattern and forest microhabitat, are unpalatable (see Elias et al., e300).
Image Credit: Photograph by Keith Willmott
Citation: (2008) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 6(12) December 2008. PLoS Biol 6(12): ev06.i12. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v06.i12
Published: December 30, 2008
Copyright: © 2008 Elias et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
All male ithomiine butterflies bear androconial "hairs" on the hindwing, which are actually a cluster of highly modified wing scales, erected during courtship displays. Yellow stripes on a black background are a signal to predators that this Napeogenes inachia, as well as nine other co-mimic species that have converged in both wing pattern and forest microhabitat, are unpalatable (see Elias et al., e300).
Image Credit: Photograph by Keith Willmott