[leps-talk] MALE x FEMALE emergence

[Nigel Venters]

My guess is that if you subjected the females to ultra violet light you'd
soon tell the difference between the species..especially strong in pierids
(Try the males too...this is
the end of the spectrum that the butterflies see well and you were using
human sight!) the genitalia would also be different...I would doubt if there
were too many cross pairings going on.
Nigel

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Bailey" <cmbb at sk.sympatico.ca>
To: <nigelventers at ntlworld.com>
Cc: "Lepslist" <LEPS-L at LISTS.YALE.EDU>
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [leps-talk] MALE x FEMALE emergence


> I do not know if this will be adding or substracting from the debate.
>
> Last season strong continous south winds coupled with good rains created
> ideal conditions for Checkered White (Pontia protodice) to come and
prosper
> in my region where they usually are a rarity.  To verify my observations,
I
> mailed vouchers out to those who know a great deal more than I do.  Not
> surprising my males keyed out as male checkered for all samples.  No
> confusion between male checkered and male western.  (P. occidentalis is
> common here.)
>
> Distinguishing females between P. protodice and P. occidentalis was the
hard
> part.
>
> In a field of thousands of whites, I estimated that I had many more P.
> protodice males than male occidentalis and was probably right.  However,
all
> the females that I had swept up turned out to be female occidentalis,
female
> protodice were not evident.
>
> In another field, I was luckier.  I had managed to collect female
checkered
> flying amongst the male checkered.
>
> If in the first field there were already mature female occidentalis  and
> mature male protodice ( and no emergent female protodice), would there not
> be a lot of cross-breeding?  And possibly when the female protodice
emerge,
> the male protodice would be past their prime breeding state.  Hence, in
this
> area cross-bred progeny would be far greater than the "pure" bred.
>
> Martin Bailey,
>
> greetings from:  Weyburn, SK., Canada.
>                          49.39N  103.51W
>
>
>


 
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