Interciencia ISSN: 0378-1844
[email protected] Asociación Interciencia Venezuela Castillo Guevara, Citlalli; Rico Gray, Víctor Is cycasin in eumaeus minyas (lepidoptera: lycaenidae) a predator deterrent? Interciencia, vol. 27, núm. 9, septiembre, 2002, pp. 465-470 Asociación Interciencia Caracas, Venezuela Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=33907204 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative IS CYCASIN IN Eumaeus minyas (LEPIDOPTERA: LYCAENIDAE) A PREDATOR DETERRENT? CITLALLI CASTILLO-GUEVARA and VÍCTOR RICO-GRAY arvae exhibit a wide quences for the biology and ecology of and Clark, 1991; Nash et al., 1992; range of defensive strate- these species. Many “chemically de- DeVries, 1994). However, this has not gies to avoid being eaten, fended” Lepidoptera are aposematic, and been tested and the life cycle of E. minyas e.g., mimetic coloration, shelter construc- store plant compounds that are known remains undescribed. We present the re- tion, unpalatability due to urticating hairs, vertebrate toxins, such as cardenolides sults of laboratory and field experiments spines and defensive glands, regurgitation, (Brower, 1984), alkaloids (Rothschild et to evaluate the protective function of cyca- chemicals sequestered from host plants, se- al., 1979; Boppre, 1990; Montllor et al., sin in the aposematic butterfly E. minyas. cretion of volatiles, and noise production 1990), and cyanogens (Jones et al., In particular, the following questions are (see Brower, 1984; Bowers, 1993). Not 1962). Chemical defense of aposematic addressed: In which stages of its life cycle only do they use their bad taste or unpleas- insects has also been shown to be effec- does E.