Journal
JOURNAL OF ETHOLOGY
Volume 35, Issue 1, Pages 3-12Publisher
SPRINGER JAPAN KK
DOI: 10.1007/s10164-016-0487-3
Keywords
Competition; Compound eyes; Erroneous courtship; Lloyd Morgan's Canon; Mating success; Pupal mating; Sexual recognition; Territory
Categories
Funding
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI grant [16K07523]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [16K07523] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Male butterflies compete over mating opportunities. Two types of contest behavior are reported. Males of various butterfly species compete over a mating territory via aerial interactions until one of the two contestants retreats. Males of other butterfly species fly around larval food plants to find receptive females. Males of some species among the latter type can find a conspecific pupa, and they gather around it without expelling their rivals. Scramble competition over mating occurs when a female emerges from the pupa. Many studies have been performed on territorial species, and their contest resolution has often been understood from the point of view of contest models based on game theory. However, these models cannot explain why these butterflies perform contest displays despite the fact that they do not have the ability to attack their opponent. A recent study based on Lloyd Morgan's Canon showed that territorial contests of male butterflies are better understood as erroneous courtship between sexually active males. In this paper, I review research on contests over mating opportunity in butterflies, and show that the erroneous courtship framework can explain not only territorial contests of butterflies but also why males do not determine the owner of a conspecific pupa.
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