Trichromacy is insufficient for mate detection in a mimetic butterfly

作者：Andrew Dang, Gary D. Bernard, Furong Yuan, Aide Macias-Muñoz, Ryan I. Hill, J. P. Lawrence, Aline G. Rangel Olguin, Armando Luis‐Martínez, Sean P. Mullen, Jorge Enrique Llorente Bousquets, Adriana D. Briscoe · 发表于：Communications Biology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s42003-025-07472-7 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Plant and animal studies、Animal Behavior and Reproduction、Lepidoptera: Biology and Taxonomy

Color vision is thought to play a key role in the evolution of animal coloration, while achromatic vision is rarely considered as a mechanism for species recognition. Here we test the hypothesis that brightness vision rather than color vision helps Adelpha fessonia butterflies identify potential mates while their co-mimetic wing coloration is indiscriminable to avian predators. We examine the trichromatic visual system of A. fessonia and characterize its photoreceptors using RNA-seq, eyeshine, epi-microspectrophotometry, and optophysiology. We model the discriminability of its wing color patches in relation to those of its co-mimic, A. basiloides, through A. fessonia and avian eyes. Visual modeling suggests that neither A. fessonia nor avian predators can readily distinguish the co-mimics' coloration using chromatic or achromatic vision under natural conditions. These results suggest that mimetic colors are well-matched to visual systems to maintain mimicry, and that mate avoidance between these two look-alike species relies on other cues.