Hybridization between distinct populations or species is increasingly recognized as an important process for generating biodiversity. However, the interaction between hybridization and speciation is complex, and the diverse evolutionary outcomes of hybridization are difficult to differentiate. Here we characterize potential hybridization in a species group of swallowtail butterflies using micro...

The swallowtail butterfly, Papilio dardanus, is an iconic example of a polymorphic Batesian mimic. The expression of various female-limited colour forms is thought to be controlled by a single autosomal locus, termed H, whose function in determining the wing pattern remains elusive. As a step towards the physical mapping of H, we established a set of 272 polymorphic amplified fragment length po...

Female-limited Batesian mimicry may have evolved because of stronger predation pressure on females than on males, but some physiological costs of mimicry may also hinder the evolution of mimicry in males. In Papilio memnon, which possesses a female-limited Batesian mimicry polymorphism, two alleles at the doublesex (dsx) locus strictly control female phenotypes. To examine whether there are phy...

A single laboratory study on monarch butterflies has prompted widespread concern that corn pollen, engineered to express Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) endotoxin, might travel beyond corn fields and cause mortality in nontarget lepidopterans. Among the lepidopterans at high potential risk from this technology is the black swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polyxenes, whose host plants in the midwester...

We found that leaf pubescence in Sassafras albidum (Nuttall) Nees negatively inßuences the growth and survivorship of a lepidopteran herbivore, Papilio troilus (L.). S. albidum leaves varied greatly in pubescence among plants. In laboratory choice experiments, P. troilus larvae preferred to eat and adult females preferred to oviposit on nonpubescent S. albidum leaves. Larvae fed pubescent S. al...

Hermeuptychia intricata Grishin, sp. n. is described from the Brazos Bend State Park in Texas, United States, where it flies synchronously with Hermeuptychia sosybius (Fabricius, 1793). The two species differ strongly in both male and female genitalia and exhibit 3.5% difference in the COI barcode sequence of mitochondrial DNA. Setting such significant genitalic and genotypic differences aside,...