The difference between foe and friend

left: caterpillar being eaten

right: caterpillar being eaten from (honey dew)

It’s a big risk for any insect to be in such close proximity with a force as powerful as the ants. One wrong move or mix up and they can perceive the insect as a threat, that’s like being the only human in a zombie pile up. Lycaenidae butterflies are very conniving and have a pretty impressive set of skills that allow them to infiltrate the colony. This allows them to have preferential treatment and attention from the ants, even putting the Lycaenidae butterflies before their own species.

Myrmecophily, is a word that literally means ant-love. Lycaenidae love the ants, they depend on them to survive, and the ants love the Lycaenidae for their sweet nectar. A love out of need, want and desire so intense in some cases it’s parasitism.

About 75% of Lycaenidae have some sort of advanced association with ants. These three associations “classes” are:

Obligate – Dependent on the ants or survival at some point in their life cycle

Facultative – There are associations with ants that are not necessary for survival

Non-ant-associated – No associations, however, Lycaenids in this class they are still safe from ant aggression

Lycaenidae larvae have an organ called the Dorsal Nectary Organ (honeydew gland). This gland secretes a honeydew-like liquid that’s like a nutritious, amino-acid filled ants love crack. A little further back on the caterpillars body you have the tentacle organs (TO’s), what these do is release a pheromone that makes the ants alert and aggressive towards anything that might do the caterpillar harm. They work in combination with the DNO’s in a pretty clever way. Depending on the threat level, they will secrete more honeydew liquid to attract more ants and then the caterpillar releases their pheromones on this larger group of ants creating more guards.

Photo and video from Butterflies of Singapore

The mimicking of sounds that are recognized as signals to the ants is another weapon in the myrmecphily arsenal of some Lycaenidae. For instance, De Vries (DeVries 1999) found that the Thisbe irenea larvae, among several other species of Lycaenidae, made a repeated vibratory pulse through the vibratory papillae. The rhythmic tapping is done at 16 pulses/second and attracts ants. Larvae with their vibratory papillae removed resulted in a significant decrease of tending ants.

Lycaenid larvae being fed trophillaxis (ant vomit)

Acoustical mimicry accounts for what I find to be the greatest trick of all in this devious relationship. The extremely fascinating and highly endangered Maculinea rebeli mimic the sounds that the queen ants make. This gets them preferential treatment above the rest of the brood, even receiving food before their own ant larvae when food was scarce. In the following link you can hear the sounds of the larvae mimicking the ant queen. 

So yea, butterflies and ants get along in a really intense yea. Sure, it might be creepy, but whats creepy to a species that eats eachothers vomit (ants regurgitate a nutritious liquid called trophillaxis both other ants and caterpillars eat). That's my article on myrm lovin'.

References and good reads:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16543-parasitic-butterflies-dupe-hosts-with-ant-music.html


DeVries, P. J. 1991c. The mutualism between Thisbe irenea and ants, and the role of ant ecology in the evolution of larval–ant associ- ations. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 43, 179–195.


Acoustics, context and function of vibrational signalling in a lycaenid butterfly–ant mutualism

Phylogenetics of Myrmica ants and their social parasites

Growth and development in the ant nest


The Ecology and Evolution of Ant Association in the Lycaenidae (Lepidoptera)

Adoption of parasitic Maculinea alcon caterpillars (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) by three Myrmica ant species

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The Hamadryas laodamia butterfly, as known in the taxonomic branch, or the Starry Night Cracker, as recognized in the enthusiast's circles, is a very unique and interesting Hamadryas butterfly. This species is in a clad all by himself among this genus because they do not make any Crackling sounds.

Real Butterfly - Hamadryas Laodamia

First let's begin with some basics on this great species. The H. laodamia was first described by the wealthy Dutch linens merchant Pieter Cramer in 1777 (A year after Cramers death). They are almost always seen basking on tree trunks of primary forest ranging from 0 - 900 m above seal level, between Mexico and Peru. They imbibe from rotting fruit, carrion and moist river beds at aggregation spots.

Hamadryas laodamia larvae (caterpillar)

A little while ago I wrote an article about the way Hamadryas butterflies make noise. They make a crackling sound through an abnormally swollen vein on the upper wing. The Hamadryas laodamia supposedly had this ability at one point, but through time evolved in transformation...

"The loss of sound production is accompanied by two other transformations: the presence of male scent organs (not present in any other species in the genus), and the presence of sexual dimorphism in wing shape and colour pattern. The congruence of these characters suggests that sound production cues have been replaced by visual and olfactory signals in H. laodamia..."  ( GARZÓN-ORDUÑA, 2011)

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A friend and fan of Ben the Butterfly Guy posted a picture of a butterfly on the Facebook page asking if I knew which species it was. At first I thought it was the Zebra Longwing, but it just didn't seem quite right. Also noting that with Heliconius mimicry, jumping to quick assumptions can lead to mis-identification. I have to admit I'd forgot about this task until she wrote me again informing me that it was the Heliconius atthis. I wanted to look a little more into this and turns out that this butterfly is commonly known as the False Zebrawing given the resemblence. 

This species of Heliconius can only be found in West Ecuador. Originally described by Doubleday in 1847 (thanks for the correction eratosignis), this species is different than the actual Zebra longwing where the patterns and stripes on the Atthis do not stretch completely across in an unbroken smooth line like the Charitonia species. 

Like many Neotropical Heliconius in S. America their host plant is the Passiflora Granadilla or Maracuya de monte as known in Peru. Females are known to mate multiply, this is where they will mate with and accept spermatophores from several male butterflies to increase successful fertilization of all their eggs. Another benefit of mate multiply traits in females is the ability to trade up mates when trying to obtain the best genes for the best offspring. As adults, they roost between 2 and 10 meters off the ground.

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Frontside

The Batesia hypochlora butterfly is commonly known as the Painted Beauty and rightly so. This is one of the most beautiful butterflies in the upper Amazon basin, found from central Colombia to eastern Ecuador, southeast Peru, western Brazil and northeast Bolivia. First described by Austrian father / son duo Felder and Felder in 1862 and currently are Nymphalidae (brush footed butterfly) classified in the Ageroniini tribe, under the Biblidinae subfamily. There is only one species of Batesia genus, the hypochlora and there are several forms of hypochlora that have been described.

Backside

They are pretty solitary for the most part, almost always encountered by themselves hanging out, soaking up sun with their wings spread apart. When disturbed they fly up high into the forest canopy but come back to their original spot soon after.

In 2002 it was found that Ryan Hill, Carla Penz and Mr. Devries published a study with some very interesting results that found the Panacea butterflies were much closer related than originally thought. They share Caryodendron (Euphorbiaceae) as hostplants and their immature stages are similar. Based on conclusive studies it was found that they were monophyletic sister taxa, much closer than originally thought and they both came from a shared ancestor.

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In the past 30 years, over 200 species of frogs have disappeared or become extinct because of a highly contagious fungus called Chytridiomycosis. I had first read about this horrible, frog killing plague on a flight to Peru 2 years ago in one of those American Airlines magazines and was totally blown away. Well, two years later there still is no cure and this has come to affect 30% of amphibians, killing 80% of frogs that become infected. Why should we care? Well besides the fact that every species in the eco-chain plays a role in the delicate checks and balance systems that keeps our eco-systems healthy, frogs are an immense source of medicinal antibiotics and drugs with an ever growing plethora of knowledge waiting to be discovered in the pharmaceutical field.

Infected frog

 The Chytridiomycosis fungus was first discovered to be killing off frogs in 1993, in Queensland and soon noted to be spread to every continent except Antarctica, with origins reaching back 15 years before since 1978.  The exact cause is still unknown, some scientists say it's a naturally occurring problem that just one day began effecting frogs. However, in 2004 a study was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluding a species of South African frog known as Xenopus laevis carried the Chytridiomycosis via it's aquatic fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd)fungus, with immunity to it's suffocating effects. 

Xenopus laevis

This frog became a live international export in the 30's as a live pregnancy test. You read right. Back before your modern day, pissing sticks, people used to inject human female urine into frogs to see if they were pregnant. If the frog produced eggs within 24 hours, congratulations, you're not only screwed up for injecting pee into a frog, but you're also pregnant. This was because the hCg hormone found in human placenta would signal the unfortunate frog to produce eggs. As these frogs were then released into new, non-native habitats, the fungus began to spread in a viral way through the moisture in the mist and water in the streams, infecting frog species that didn't have a natural immunity to this fungus, covering their skin and suffocating them.

The way this cruel fungus spreads through zoospores that stretch out a slimy arm to expand it's reach. Once this slimy arm grasps onto a new portion of "skin" creating a hub called a sporangium. There the sporangium matures producing more zoospores and beginning the process all over again. Amphibians breathe through their skin and as this fungus spreads across their skin it suffocates them until they choke to death, spread out as if their skin was gasping for air like this poor thing...

There still is no cure, or effective way to combat this epidemic. There are theories and findings that suggest ways to treat this plague, but nothing solid.

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