Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

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lamprima2
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Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by lamprima2 »

Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae
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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by wollastoni »

Papilio machaon and several other Papilionidae does that too. It helps them being invisible depending on the environment... but sometimes they "choose" the wrong colour !
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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by adamcotton »

Many Papilio species, particularly groups of 'Old World' origin, have these pupal colour forms. Generally brown pupae are found away from the larval foodplant and green ones are the result of larvae that stay on the plant (or maybe crawl to another plant) to pupate.

It is not absolutely clear whether the pupal forms are genetic (brown pupa gene also causes the larva to crawl away to pupate), or are the result of a visible light trigger when the pre-pupa is preparing to moult.

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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by adamcotton »

Interestingly in the machaon group, the overwintering pupae are mainly brown, presumably because there's not much green around in winter, so once diapause is triggered in the larva the brown form of the pupa is produced regardless of the surroundings of the pre-pupa. People used to think that brown pupa = diapause, but that is not the case.

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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by adamcotton »

Many species in the Asian subgenus Menelaides such as P. memnon, polytes etc also have green and brown or grey pupae, sometimes with some variation in the pattern.

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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by kevinkk »

That is interesting, I had some Papilio trolius pupa that were overwintered and some were green, not many, and that was out of about 3 dozen,
I seem to recall Eurytides marcellus having green and brown pupa as well. I don't raise enough butterflies, and I think it would take
a lot of data to find a pattern you could rely on, the season I raised P. polyxenes they also had two color forms with the pupa, and I had those
indoors under lights, fed on fennel, where there was always green vegetation. I wondered why the 2 forms, and assumed it was simply a
random event. Those were raised with a 14 or 16 hour cycle, so the larva wouldn't have been thinking about winter camo.
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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by livingplanet3 »

Battus philenor pupae have green and brown forms as well -

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Also, Papilio polyxenes -

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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by eurytides »

I seem to recall a paper concluding that the green vs brown pupae thing was based on the texture of the pupation surface. Not sure if this is universal.

Also, E. marcellus, Battus philenor, and Battus polydamas all have brown and green pupae. I have had the pleasure of raising all 3 species.
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Re: Polymorphism of P. zelicaon pupae

Post by lamprima2 »

Several publications suggest that the coloration of pupae in Papilionidae is controlled by environmental factors. See, for example:
Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Pupal Protective Color Switch in Papilio polytes Butterflies. Shinichi Yoda, Emi Otaguro, Mayumi Nobuta and Haruhiko Fujiwara. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 14 March 2020 | Volume 8 | Article 51
I kept four larvae, collected at L1 on the same plant, in a rather small glass jar, filled with fennel leaves. Two resulted in green pupae, two – in brown. It is hard to suggest any difference in the environment. Of course, this is not a result of an experiment, involving statistically significant numbers of animals, controls, etc.- just an observation.
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