Testing Visual Species Recognition in Precis (Lepidoptera:Nymphalidae) Using a Cold‐Shock Phenocopy

There have been many studies of the role of color and pattern in mating and species recognition in butterflies. For example, C r a n e (1955) manipulated the bold color pattern of Heliconius spp. (Heliconiidae), affecting mating success; Burns (1966) claimed on t h e basis of spermatophore counts that differential attractiveness of female morphs helped to maintain a mimetic polymorphism in Papilio glaucus L. (Papilionidae); and Silberglied, Aiello, and Lamas (1980) found that modifying the pattern of Anartia (Nymphalidae) affected mating success but not survivorship. Recently Hafernik (1983) demonstrated that the conspicuous pale dorsal forewing band serves as a visual species-recognition character, contributing to reproductive isolation between the partly sympatric buckeye butterflies Precis (=Junonia) coenia Hubner and P. nigrosuffisa (Barnes & McDunnough). In hybridization experiments these entities are quite compatible genetically and developmentally; Hafernik concluded that differences between them "are probably not associated with major genomic reorganization, but a r e rather the result of allelic differences a t a few loci," including presumably those that control the presence or absence of the forewing band. The experiments done by Hafernik to test the hypothesis of visual reproductive isolation were modeled on the work of Scott (1972), involving presentation of reared virgin females to wild patrolling males afield. There were four sets of experiments (i) actual combinations of nigrosuffusa and coenia; (ii) coenia painted to resemble nigrosuffusa; (iii) "wing transplants" (wings of one type glued o n t o the wings of a living animal of the other; (iv) paper models. All o f these tended to indicate that coenia males discriminate against