Male sex pheromone of a giant danaine butterfly, Idea leuconoe
1996
Nishida, R. | Schulz, S. | Kim, C.S. | Fukami, H. | Kuwahara, Y. | Honda, K. | Hayashi, N.
Males or a giant danaine butterfly. Idea leuconoe, display hair-pencils during courtship. The females were visually attracted to and olfactorily arrested by an artificial butterfly model to which male hairpencil extracts were added. The hairpencil extracts contained a complex mixture of volatiles, including pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) derivatives (danaidone, viridifloric beta-lactone), aromatics (phenol, p-cresol, benzoic acid, terpenoids (geranyl methyl thioether, (E.E)-farnesol), a series of gamma-lactones (6-hydnoxy-4-undecanolides and its homologs), hydrocarbons [(Z)-9-tricosene, etc.], and several compounds with higher molecular weight. A mixture of the major volatiles applied to a butterfly dummy strongly elicited an abdomen-curling acceptance posture in females. Viridifloric beta-lactone and danaidone induced significant electroantennogram responses on the female's antennae, suggesting their principal role together with other hairpencil components as a sex pheromone to seduce females. I. leuconoe males seem to acquire the precursor for both of the PA fragments from the host plant. Parsonsia laevigata (Apocynaceae), during the larval stage; thereby they do not show pharmacophagous behavior towards PA-containing plants during the adult stage. However, males are pharmacophagously attracted to and feed on a number of simple phenolic compounds in a manner similar to other danaine species towards PAs. Wild males sequester one of the phagostimulants, (-)-mellein, in the hairpencils in varying quantities. Phenolic compounds incorporated in the hairpencils may act primarily as warning odors linked with the defensive PAs present in the body tissue.
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