Female Battus philenor are known to be able to learn and use leaf shapes in the finding of plants on which to lay their eggs. Previous work has shown that contact chemical cues are important in the positive identification of hosts, and are used as the unconditional stimulus for the learning of leaf shapes. However, evidence for any role for volatiles in the oviposition behavior of this species was lacking. Both field and lab experiments are shown to demonstrate the ability of females to use odor during host-finding, and comparative and ecological aspects of this behavior are discussed.
Species 1: Lepidoptera Papilionidae Battus philenor (pipevine swallowtail)
Keywords: oviposition, volatiles
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