New Papilio described today

[adamcotton]

Release of the hormone that initiates diapause is triggered by daylength during late 4th instar and 5th instar larval stages. Generally, less than 14 hours daylength is supposed to trigger diapause in many butterflies that diapause as pupae.

Adam.

[jhyatt]

JHyatt IIRC Adam said in the Marcellus thread that any flight can become any of the three flights the following year. Where cecropia has two flights it is the same situation.
L

Thanks, Chuck. I either missed that marcellus thread, or had forgotten seeing it.

jh

[eurytides]

Bobw, your UK experience might be very similar to what we see along the north range limit of glaucus here. Did you rear them under natural conditions?

[kevinkk]

I admire all the work that gets done sorting out these species that look very similiar to me.

The subject of day length interests me, typically I raise anything indoors under a timer,set with outdoor conditions. I read that many breeders use boxes and I am curious about the amount of light it might take to trigger the stage before a diapause.
Is ambient light enough? I'm just curious, not like I am planning on doing a study ..

[Chuck]

Release of the hormone that initiates diapause is triggered by daylength during late 4th instar and 5th instar larval stages. Generally, less than 14 hours daylength is supposed to trigger diapause in many butterflies that diapause as pupae.

Adam.

Interesting. In 2024, August 15 we dropped to 14 hours.

Around August 15 there are still many female P solstitius. And, of course by then, many larvae. What happens to the early 4th instar larvae? What do they do? I presume that eggs laid on August 15 are generally doomed, but the larvae soldier on as long as they can?

Kevin, IIRC the dipause experiments on Tigers was done indoors. That is a good question, because there are many significant difference between sunlight and indoor lighting.

I don't recall (I should go back and read) the impact of the elevation of the sun at ~14 hours of light. I wonder if it's not the total hours, but some measure of "quality hours" of light. Those who've spent time in the tropics know the sun comes up with a shot, and 30 minutes after sunrise it already throws heat one can feel. And then when it sets it's very fast. So say there's 12ish hours of light that day in the tropics, but it's mostly very powerful light. Contrast that with NY, where the sun rises slowly and has no heat, and then at the end of the day again has not real strength for the last hour plus.

Perhaps related? In KY in mid-Summer the Tigers shut down about 90 minutes before sunset; in NY it's closer to 2 hours.

[adamcotton]

Around August 15 there are still many female P solstitius. And, of course by then, many larvae. What happens to the early 4th instar larvae? What do they do? I presume that eggs laid on August 15 are generally doomed, but the larvae soldier on as long as they can?

Nothing happens to the early 4th instar larvae, they grow and then pupate and all these pupae will go into diapause. Eggs laid after August 15th should be fine, as long as there is another month to 6 weeks for the larvae to develop. Larger larvae do very well even on older leaves, so the lack of young growing leaves at 4th and 5th instar should not be a serious issue for them later in the year. Here in higher tropical temperatures Papilio larvae take about 3 weeks to go from hatching to pupation, presumably this takes longer at lower temperatures.

Adam.

[adamcotton]

Release of the hormone that initiates diapause is triggered by daylength during late 4th instar and 5th instar larval stages. Generally, less than 14 hours daylength is supposed to trigger diapause in many butterflies that diapause as pupae.

Adam.

Perhaps my meaning was unclear, the hormone triggered by lower daylength does not affect the larva during its development, all it does is trigger diapause after pupation. It does not cause larvae to go into diapause upon production, they just carry on eating as normal.

Adam.

[mothman27]

I commend the authors on a very interesting and thorough article. I can't image how much time went into that research and publication. If a large and widespread lepidopterans can be so complex, how many more cryptic species are hiding in plain sight.

I'm curious about the DNA coding. How much of the specimen is used and what is the turnaround time?

Impressive work!

[Chuck]

Thank you, mothman27. It was a labor of love.

I can't imagine how much time was spent on research to even get to starting the paper. To my mind, it was a capstone project, the top of a pyramid of immense research.

Generation after generation of various eastern Tiger Swallowtails were raised by Hagen & Lederhouse, Scriber, Pavulaan, and member Eurytides- that had to be thousands of hours, spread over 30 years.

There are no fewer than two dozen papers that built the foundation for Papilio solstitius. And each involved field work, research, testing, etc...each one is hundreds if not thousands of hours.

COI barcoding, records up and downloaded to BOLD, SNP analysis, etc. also is based partially on past work. More hundreds of hours.

For me alone, four papers drafted, four summers in the field ~3 hours/day, 4-5 days/week for almost four months. Record keeping every day; setting an average of ~4-6 specimens/ day. Trips to KY, VA, PA, and many shorter trips throughout central NY. Trips to Cornell and Carnegie. Travel by auto, aircraft, sailboat, and motorboat. Total guess, 3000 hours and $3000.

And for all those hours and dollars, the ironic thing is: they already knew it existed and was a unique taxon. I was driven by the fact that it was an open secret and nobody had named it, which drove me nuts. I wanted it named.

[bobw]

Bobw, your UK experience might be very similar to what we see along the north range limit of glaucus here. Did you rear them under natural conditions?

I started them indoors, then sleeved them outside when they were L2/L3.

[adamcotton]

I'm curious about the DNA coding. How much of the specimen is used and what is the turnaround time?

I noticed this question wasn't answered so I thought I would send a quick 'vague' reply.

Generally, only a few legs are needed for analysis, but any body tissue can be used, so for example if an abdomen is removed for genitalia preparation the part above the genitalia can be sent for DNA analysis so it isn't wasted.

As for the time it takes, that really depends on the type of analysis, but generally it doesn't take very long (a few weeks) for a simple barcode (COI) sample, maybe even faster now, but more complex analysis such as whole genome etc can take at least several months for all the stages of the analysis to be completed.

Adam.

[Chuck]

To go into more detail on DNA coding-

I privately covered the cost to do COI 5' for 9 specimens, which was $180. I had a retired Carnegie volunteer coordinate it; I sent legs in vials, she did her thing and sent it off for analysis.

Recently, she advised that she has a source to do 100 specimens for $1200. That's $12 each.

But that's only part of it.

Jhyatt and Jshuey will remember the Society KY Lep meeting at University of KY where I dropped off some 40+ specimens. These sit in the freezer at UK since 2023 because there is no funding. They can't just "do them" it has to be part of a funded project. The estimated cost was $7500 (surely for COI 5', but probably included SNPs and more as well)...but, all institutions also throw a surcharge on grants, so to satisfy UK I'd have had to pony up not $7500 but $10,000.

So the timeframe depends on not just how long it really takes, but in reality, when and where it can be fit in, and who's willing to pay the bill.

[Chuck]

For those future researchers who are interested in the Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, particularly Papilio solstitius:

Hundreds of set specimens, including most of the US paratypes of Papilio solstitius, are going to Cornell's CUIC this week.

40+ frozen specimens are with Julian at University of Kentucky.

I will retain a dozen or so Papilio solstitius.