Description
This book presents a readable account of butterfly behaviour, based on field observations, great photographs and the latest research. The main focus is on courtship and mating - including perching, searching and territorial behaviour - but to understand these subjects it is necessary to explain how mates are chosen and this requires sections on wing colours and patterns. A chapter on butterfly vision is also essential in terms of how butterflies see the world and each other. There have been exciting discoveries in all of these fields in recent years, including: butterfly vision (butterfly photoreceptors), wing patterns (molecular biology), wing colouration (structural colours and nano-architecture), mating strategies and female choice (ecology and behaviour).
Table of contents
- 1: Introduction
- 2: Sexual selection and mate choice
- 3: Strategies for locating a mate
- 4: Seeing and being seen
- 5: Courtship behaviour
- 6: Body language
- 7: The Mating Game
- 8: The inside story
- 9: Scents – chemical communications
- 10: Wing colours and iridescence
- 11: Glossary
- 12: Summing Up
- 13: Annex 1.
- 14: References
Readership
The book covers many different areas of biology and these will be of great interest to the academic reader, students of behavioural ecology, and amateur lepidopterists and naturalists.
Reviews
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