Mimicry in Common Mormon Butterflies

 

Mimicry in Common Mormon Butterflies



Today, I happened to spot two male Common Mormon butterflies trying to mate with what looked like a Crimson Rose butterfly - which piqued my interest!

Short video


 
It turns out that the females of the Common Mormon (Papilio polytes romulus) are masters of disguise - for some unknown reasons, males haven't quite adopted this as a survival technique. 

Source: National Geographic


Some females look like regular black-and-white males, but others have evolved - using a so-called supergene - to embellish their wings with white brushstrokes and red curlicues that visually mimic the distantly related Crimson Rose Butterflies that are highly toxic. By mimicking the wing pattern, the female Mormons fool predators into thinking that they are to be likewise avoided.

Male Common Mormon (photo: Internet)


The definition of mimicry for biology is: “the resemblance of one organism to another or to an object in its surroundings for concealment and protection from predators”

Mimicry using wing patterns as a visual warning for predators in the butterfly world falls into three large categories
  • Batesiam mimicry in which a harmless species mimics a poisonous species, this is what the Common Mormon is doing. Studies show that this kind of mimicry works best when the frequency is low in any given population.
  • Mullerian mimicry in which two poisonous species use the same wing pattern.
  • Mertensian mimicry, the least known and least prevalent, is when a harmless species is mimicked by a deadly species in order to have a bigger chance of survival. If a species is deadly the predator cannot learn, because the predator dies. So it is beneficial for an individual to mimic harmless species, so there are more individuals with the same pattern and with a bigger group the chance of being predated reduces. An example is coral snakes. Scarlet king snakes (Lampropeltis elapsoides) a non-venomous species are mimicked by the Eastern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius).

Let's take a closer look at the Crimson Rose Butterfly (Pachliopta hector) - it belongs to the swallowtail (Papilionidae) family of butterflies, found all over the tropics. 


They’re large, visually striking butterflies that lay their eggs on the Indian birthwort plant (Aristolochia indica) or similar plants that contain a toxic substance. The butterfly larvae sequester this toxin, making the adult butterfly inedible to would-be predators. Species frequently share the same wing patterns and therefore have similar signals of toxicity thus amplifying survival benefits. The high-contrast red markings on the black wings are meant to advertise this toxicity — nature’s take on a bright red “Danger” sign.


So it keeps predators that use a visual cue at bay but not mates who use a chemical (pheromonal) cue!! 

Nature never ceases to surprise!!

Sources: 

1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-supergene-that-paints-a-liar
2. https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/17886/1/Thesis_Welmoed_Mollema.pdf 
Location: Altinho, Panaji, Goa, India

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