TY - JOUR
T1 - Visual field structure in the Empress Leilia, Asterocampa leilia (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae)
T2 - Dimensions and regional variation in acuity
AU - Rutowski, Ronald L.
AU - Warrant, Eric J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank Lee McCoy, Mark Rivera, Jenny Drnevich, Randi Papke, Aaron Fritts, Brenda Rascon, and especially Megan Kimball, for their help with various phases of this project both in the lab and field. We are also grateful to the Department of Biology at Arizona State University and the Department of Zoology at the University of Lund for logistic and other support, and NSF Grant BNS to R.L. Rutowski for financial support. The authors are very grateful to Rita Wallén (Lund) for her expert histological assistance. E.J. Warrant is extremely grateful for the ongoing support of the Swedish Natural Sciences Research Council.
PY - 2002/2/1
Y1 - 2002/2/1
N2 - Male Empress Leilia butterflies (Asterocampa leilia) use a sit-and-wait tactic to locate mates. To see how vision might influence male behavior, we studied the morphology, optics, and receptor physiology of their eyes and found the following. (1) Each eye's visual field is approximately hemispherical with at most a 10° overlap in the fields of the eyes. There are no large sexual differences in visual field dimensions. (2) In both sexes, rhabdoms in the frontal and dorsal ommatidia are longer than those in other eye regions. (3) Interommatidial angles are smallest frontally and around the equator of the eye. Minimum interommatidial angles are 0.9-1° in males and 1.3-1.4° in females. (4) Acceptance angles of ommatidia closely match interommatidial angles in the frontal region of the eye. We conclude that vision in these butterflies is mostly monocular and that males have more acute vision than females, especially in the frontal region (large facets, small interommatidial angles, small acceptance angles, long rhabdoms, and a close match between interommatidial angles and acceptance angles). This study also suggests that perched males direct their most acute vision where females are likely to appear but show no eye modifications that appear clearly related to a mate-locating tactic.
AB - Male Empress Leilia butterflies (Asterocampa leilia) use a sit-and-wait tactic to locate mates. To see how vision might influence male behavior, we studied the morphology, optics, and receptor physiology of their eyes and found the following. (1) Each eye's visual field is approximately hemispherical with at most a 10° overlap in the fields of the eyes. There are no large sexual differences in visual field dimensions. (2) In both sexes, rhabdoms in the frontal and dorsal ommatidia are longer than those in other eye regions. (3) Interommatidial angles are smallest frontally and around the equator of the eye. Minimum interommatidial angles are 0.9-1° in males and 1.3-1.4° in females. (4) Acceptance angles of ommatidia closely match interommatidial angles in the frontal region of the eye. We conclude that vision in these butterflies is mostly monocular and that males have more acute vision than females, especially in the frontal region (large facets, small interommatidial angles, small acceptance angles, long rhabdoms, and a close match between interommatidial angles and acceptance angles). This study also suggests that perched males direct their most acute vision where females are likely to appear but show no eye modifications that appear clearly related to a mate-locating tactic.
KW - Acute zone
KW - Asterocampa leilia (Nymphalidae)
KW - Butterfly vision
KW - Eye morphology
KW - Visual field structure
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U2 - 10.1007/s00359-001-0273-7
DO - 10.1007/s00359-001-0273-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 11935226
AN - SCOPUS:0036488851
SN - 0340-7594
VL - 188
SP - 1
EP - 12
JO - Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology
JF - Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology
IS - 1
ER -