EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Number of eyespots and their intimidating effect on naïve predators in the peacock butterfly

Sami Merilaita, Adrian Vallin, Ullasa Kodandaramaiah, Marina Dimitrova, Suvi Ruuskanen and Toni Laaksonen

Behavioral Ecology, 2011, vol. 22, issue 6, 1326-1331

Abstract: Predation experiments have shown that the large eyespots (concentric rings of contrasting colors) found on the wings of several lepidopteran species intimidate passerine predators. According to the eye mimicry hypotheses, the intimidation is caused by predators associating the eyespots with the presence (of the eyes) of their own enemy. The conspicuousness hypothesis suggests, instead, that it is simply the conspicuousness of eyespot patterns that is intimidating, possibly due to a sensory bias. We studied how the number of eyespots, 2 or 4, influences intimidation. We predicted that if eye mimicry is important, the maximum response would be reached with a pair of eyespots. On the other hand, if conspicuousness is important, then more than 2 eyespots should result in an even stronger response. The peacock butterfly, Inachis io, has 4 large eyespots on its wings. We presented naïve insectivorous birds (pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca) 2 different prey items made from wings of dead peacock butterflies and a mealworm between the wings. One group of birds received prey that had no or only 2 eyespots visible and the other group received prey that had no or all 4 eyespots visible. Eyespots clearly increased hesitation before attacks. Because the birds were naïve, this difference in response to the eyespots was innate. Importantly, there was no difference in attack latency between 2 and 4 eyespots. We conclude that it is unlikely that conspicuousness as such has selected for eyespots in the peacock butterfly. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arr135 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:22:y:2011:i:6:p:1326-1331

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:22:y:2011:i:6:p:1326-1331