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Mimetic butterfly wings through mimetic butterfly eyes: Evidence that brightness vision helps Adelpha fessonia identify potential mates

Dang, A.; Bernard, G. D.; Yuan, F.; Macias-Munoz, A.; Hill, R. I.; Lawrence, J. P.; Olguin, A. R. G.; Luis-Martinez, A.; Mullen, S. P.; Llorente-Bousquets, J.; Briscoe, A. D.

2023-10-07 evolutionary biology
10.1101/2023.10.05.561098 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Color vision is thought to play a key role in the evolution of animal coloration, while achromatic vision is rarely considered as a mechanism for species recognition. Here we test the hypothesis that brightness vision rather than color vision helps Adelpha fessonia butterflies identify potential mates while their co-mimetic wing coloration is indiscriminable to avian predators. We examine the trichromatic visual system of A. fessonia and characterize its photoreceptors using RNA-seq, eyeshine, epi- microspectrophotometry and optophysiology. We model the discriminability of its wing color patches in relation to those of its co-mimic, A. basiloides, through A. fessonia and avian eyes. Visual modeling suggests that neither A. fessonia nor avian predators can readily distinguish the co-mimics coloration using chromatic or achromatic vision under natural conditions. These results suggest that mimetic colors are well-matched to visual systems to maintain mimicry, and that mate avoidance between these two look-alike species relies on other cues.

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