3079 The Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 3079-3090 Published by The Company of Biologists 2006 doi:10.1242/jeb.02360 Beauty in the eye of the beholder: the two blue opsins of lycaenid butterflies and the opsin gene-driven evolution of sexually dimorphic eyes Marilou P. Sison-Mangus1, Gary D. Bernard2, Jochen Lampel3 and Adriana D. Briscoe1,* 1Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology Group, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 321 Steinhaus Hall, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA, 2Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-2500, USA and 3Functional Morphology Group, Department of Developmental Biology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany *Author for correspondence (e-mail:
[email protected]) Accepted 5 June 2006 Summary Although previous investigations have shown that wing pigments, also contains the LW visual pigment, and coloration is an important component of social signaling in likewise expresses UVRh, BRh1 and LWRh mRNAs. butterflies, the contribution of opsin evolution to sexual Unexpectedly, in the female dorsal eye, we also found wing color dichromatism and interspecific divergence BRh1 co-expressed with LWRh in the R3-8 photoreceptor remains largely unexplored. Here we report that the cells. The ventral eye of both sexes, on the other hand, butterfly Lycaena rubidus has evolved sexually dimorphic contains all four visual pigments and expresses all four eyes due to changes in the regulation of opsin expression opsin mRNAs in a non-overlapping fashion. Surprisingly, patterns to match the contrasting life histories of males we found that the 500·nm visual pigment is encoded by a and females. The L.