TESTING VISUAL SPECIES RECOGNITION IN PRECIS 
(LEPIDOPTERA; NYMPHALIDAE) USING A COLD-SHOCK 
PHENOCOPY 
By Arthur M. Shapiro' 
Department of Zoology, University of California 
Davis, California 95616 
There have been many studies of the role of color and pattern in 
mating and species recognition in butterflies. For example. Crane 
(1955) manipulated the bold color pattern of Heliconius spp. (Heli- 
coniidae), affecting mating success; Burns (1966) claimed on the 
basis of spermatophore counts that differential attractiveness of 
female morphs helped to maintain a mimetic polymorphism in Papi- 
lio glaucus L. (Papilionidae); and Silberglied, Aiello, and Lamas 
(1980) found that modifying the pattern of Anartia (Nympha- 
lidae) affected mating success but not survivorship. 
Recently Hafernik (1983) demonstrated that the conspicuous pale 
dorsal forewing band serves as a visual species-recognition charac- 
ter, contributing to reproductive isolation between the partly sym- 
patric buckeye butterflies Precis {=Junonia) coenia Hubner and P. 
nigrosuffusa (Barnes & McDunnough). In hybridization experi- 
ments these entities are quite compatible genetically and develop- 
mentally; Hafernik concluded that differences between them “are 
probably not associated with major genomic reorganization, but are 
rather the result of allelic differences at a few loci,” including pre- 
sumably 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 combina- 
tions of nigrosuffusa and coenia; (ii) coenia painted to resemble 
nigrosuffusa; (iii) “wing transplants” (wings of one type glued onto 
the wings of a living animal of the other; (iv) paper models. All of 
these tended to indicate that coenia males discriminate against 
^Manuscript received hy the editor January 6, 1983 
59 
