Fig 1.
Elymnias hypermnestra mimics and their model species.
Sexually dimorphic male and female specimens of E. hypermnestra tinctoria from Chiang Mai, Thailand, and E. h. baliensis from Bali, Indonesia, compared with a monomorphic subspecies, E. h. hainana from Taiwan, and putative model species. Used under a CC BY license with permission from Shen-Horn Yen, the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Fig 2.
Geographical distribution of sexually dimorphic and monomorphic Elymnias hypermnestra populations.
The geographic ranges of the two subspecies sampled in this study, E. h. tinctoria and E. h. baliensis, are indicated.
Fig 3.
Chromatograms of pigment mixtures extracted from orange wings of female Elymnias hypermnestra tinctoria (upper), and E. h. baliensis (lower).
Letters (b-j) refer to ommochrome compounds identified from each extract (Fig 4).
Fig 4.
Hypothesized chemical structures and trivial names of ommochrome pigment compounds isolated from the wings of orange female Elymnias hypermnestra.
All compounds share a common 4-ring core (a); modifications to this core are indicated in pink. Six compounds were isolated from E. h. tinctoria in Thailand (b-g) and five were isolated from E. h. baliensis from Bali, Indonesia (f-j). Two compounds (f-g) were found in both populations. With the exception of xanthommatin (c) and decarboxylated xanthommatin (h) [17, 22–24, 60], all compounds are characterized for the first time in this study. The precise isomeric structure of tinctoriommatin (b) and elymniommatin (f) could not be determined with certainty; mass spectra and alternative structures of the isomers of are reported in S1 File.
Fig 5.
Hypothesized biochemical pathways for synthesis of the ommochrome compounds identified in this study.