| Butterflies have important ornamental and economic value because of their colorful wings, elegant flying posture and wide varieties. Meanwhile, butterflies are also playing ecological value during visiting flowers. In this paper, we observed the behaviors of Idea leuconoe comprehensively which included flight, foraging, courtship, mating and oviposition. In addition, the courtship initiative, visual and olfactory information utilization in courtship process had also been studied. In order to providing the basic theory for butterfly landscape construction and improving artificial breeding effectively. The main conclusions are as follows:(1) Behavior observation of Idea leuconoe adultsAdult behaviors of Idea leuconoe was observed by the tracking method in a netted room. The results showed that the initial temperature of eclosion was 23℃ and that eclosion mainly occurred at 08:00-09:00. The pupal shell faded to a gold color, and became dry and transparent as animals approached emergence, which revealed the contour and color of the butterfly. Just 1 min was required from the cracking of the puparium to adult emergence from the puparium. The wings were fully extended after approximately 5 min, and were stacked on the back, with a further 1 h being required for the wings to harden. We observed some flight, but no foraging behavior, on the first day of eclosion, with adult insects remaining in a resting state for most of the time. Both male and female butterflies began to forage on the second day after eclosion. Flight activity began as early as 07:30, and stopped as late as 18:40. However, on cloudy days, flight activity began later and stopped earlier. The daily peak time for flying by females was at 10:00-12:00, while two flying peaks were observed for males, at 10:00-12:00 and 14:00-16:00. Flight behavior was affected when temperatures fell below 25℃ or rose above 30℃. Male butterflies tolerated higher temperatures compared to female butterflies since males were more active than females at 30℃. Except for cloudy days, the flight frequency and flight duration of both males and females increased gradually until mating. In the eight days from eclosion to oviposition, the total flight frequency and accumulated flying time of females were 146 times and 186.23 min, flying on average 18 times a day with a cumulative time of 23.28 min per day, resulting in 1.28 min per flight. Similarly, males flew 131 times for 114.43 min during these eight days, on average 16 times and 14.30 min per day, resulting in 52 seconds per flight. There was no significant difference (p> 0.05) between males and females with respect to total flight frequency or flight duration, while this difference was significant among different days (p< 0.05). A positive significant correlation existed between flight frequency and duration time (p< 0.01). In addition, a positive correlation was seen between flight frequency and single flight time (p< 0.01) in the butterfly population. During the eight days from eclosion to oviposition, females visited flowers 53 times, which took up 36.30% of the total flying times. Total feeding time on flowers was 258.87 min, which was equivalent to 139% of total flight duration time. Seven visits took up 38.9% of total daily flying times, representing 32.36 min per day for flower visits and 4.88 min per visit. Males visited flowers 40 times, which was 30.53% of total flying times, with 344.41 min in total spent feeding on flowers, representing 300.98% of overall flying time. Five visits took up 31.25% of total daily flying times, representing 43.05 min per day for flower visits and 8.61 min per visit. There was no significant difference (p> 0.05) between males and females with respect to flight and feeding times. On the sixth day after eclosion, mating mainly occurred at 12:00-16:00. Most mating encounters were very long, some of which lasted more than 10 hours. Both male and female butterflies mated more than once. If the mating process was disturbed, butterflies were able to change location by flying elsewhere in an unseparated state. The first oviposition occurred on the second day after mating, while the last oviposition occurred on the fourth day after mating. Most eggs were deposited in a dispersed manner on the back of host leaves.(2) The courtship observation and visual utilization in courtship of Idea leuconoeCourtship initiative of Idea leuconoe was observed by the tracking method in a netted room. We recorded the heterosexual pursuiting frequency and duration and homosexual chasing frequency and duration. The results showed that the frequency and duration of male-male chasing were the highest,55 times and 809 s respectively, accounting for 66.3% and 68.8% of total chasing times and time, on average 14.7 s per chase; male-female pursuiting frequency and duration were 27 times and 361 s, took up 32.5% and 30.7% respectively, representing 13.4 s per pursuit; there was only once for female-male pursuit, which took 5 s; no female-female chasing phenomenon. The active pursuit of males accounting for 82 times and 1170 s, representing 98.8% and 99.6% of all chasing frequency and duration. The homosexual expelling of males took a higher proportion, which in order to compete for the right to mate. It can be seen that male butterflies had strong mating competition in the courtship process. Odourless true-wing plastic models and blank models were used in the test of visual utilization study. We recorded the frequency and duration of 10 male butterflies and 10 females respectively for visiting models in a netted room. It was found that the male butterflies visited models more than females, the visits to true-wing models was more than the visits to blank. It could been seen that the shape and color of butterfly had some effect in courtship.(3) The olfactory utilization in courtship of Idea leuconoeVolatiles from male and female Idea leuconoe were closely and circularly head-space sampled within adsorptive tubes, then analyzed by auto thermal-desorption gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (ATD-GC/MS) in this research. It was found that both sexes contain aldehydes, ketones, alkenes, terpenoids, esters, ethers. Female butterfly had 10 kinds of volatiles which not exist in male butterfly, accounting for 35.97% of the total amount volatile in female, male butterflies had 3 kinds of specific volatiles that accounted for 50.32% of the total male volatiles. The results of EAG tests showed that both sexes had EAG response to all 14 selected volitiles (6 kinds were female specific volatiles; 2 kinds were male’s own volatiles; other 6 kinds were contained in both male and female), the responses of males were significantly stronger (p< 0.05) than female’s. The EAG responses of males and females were different among different ages. The olfactory behavioral responses to volatiles were observed in a netted room. The results showed that the visit frequency of males to different volatiles significantly higher than the females. The visit frequency of males to two male specific volatiles and 1,3,5-cycloheptene were significantly higher than the visits to female specific volatiles (p< 0.05). Males had strong responses to male volatiles, but not to female volatiles. It possibly demonstrated that males fistly identified same kinds by common volatiles and then distinguished females from males by excluding same-sex butterflies; or males competed with each other for mating right. While females had a higher visits to 1,3,5-cycloheptene and benzaldehyde than the male volatiles. It may be related to the passive position of females in courtship, females only needed to recognize same species and same sex. |
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