Estágios imaturos de Caligo illioneus illioneus (Cramer) (Nymphalidae: Morphinae: Brassolini)

Abstract

-The biology and external morphology of the immature stages of Caligo illioneus illioneus (Cramer) are described from ovipositions collected on leaves of Heliconia velloziana (Heliconiaceae) in the Atlantic Forest in Pernambuco state, Brazil.

Biological aspects of Caligo teucer (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) with banana tree leaves

“…The egg size and the carinae number of C. teucer japetus are within the range of 1.8-2.0 mm and 28-30 carinas, respectively, for C. teucer (Souza et al, 2006), but greater than the 26-27 carinae of C. eurilochus (Cramer, 1775) and lower than the 31 and 33-36 of C. beltrao (Illiger, 1801) (Casagrande, 1979) and C. illioneus (Cramer, 1775) (Specht and Paluch, 2009), respectively. The darkening of the C. teucer japetus eggs is due to the semitransparent corium showing the color of the head and the longitudinal carmine red stripes of the pre-emergent caterpillar (Souza et al, 2006).…”

“…The shorter duration of the third and longer of the fifth instar of C. teucer japetus, with banana leaves, is also due to the increase in the feeding period, in the latter, to accumulate lipids necessary for the pupa formation (Mevi-Schütz and Erhardt, 2003;Llandres et al, 2015). On the other hand, the longer durations of the first, second, third, fourth and fifth instars of C. teucer japetus compared to those of C. illioneus with leaves of Heliconia velloziana (Heliconiaceae) (Specht and Paluch, 2009); that of the first (6 days), second (8 days), third (5 days), fourth (5-6 days) and fifth (6-7) instars of C. illioneus with banana leaves (Penz et al, 1999) and the first (7.7 days), second (7.5 days) and third (8.6 days) instars of C. eurilochus with S. spontaneum and Cyrtostachus sp. leaves (Malo and Willis, 1961) can be attributed to the variations between Caligo species, their host plants (War et al, 2012(War et al, , 2018Santamaria et al, 2015Santamaria et al, , 2018 and the development temperature of these caterpillars (Solensky and Larkin, 2003;Navarro-Cano et al, 2015).…”

“…The lower survival of C. teucer japetus caterpillars is probably due to their gregarious behavior from the first to the fourth instar (Specht and Paluch, 2009;Allen, 2010), with higher mortality from those of the first instar, individualized, and therefore more vulnerable to chemical and morphological defenses of banana leaves (Reader and Hochuli, 2003;Campbell and Stastny, 2015) and the leaves microclimate (Ronnas et al, 2010;Campbell and Stastny, 2015). In addition, the metabolism, digestive physiology and intestinal microbiote of newborn caterpillars differ from those in more advanced instars (Mason and Raffa, 2014;Despland, 2018), being more selective and sensitive to food and plant chemical defenses, possibly due to a more limited set of digestive enzymes (Hochuli, 2001).…”

“…The longer and shorter duration of the larvae and egg stages, respectively, is commom for species of the genus Calligo (Penz et al, 1999;Souza et al, 2006;Specht and Paluch, 2009) and, as mentioned, the longest larval period of individuals that originated females can be attributed to the fact that females need more nutritional resources than males to reach adulthood (Specht et al, 2013). The greater duration of the larval stage of C. teucer, of individuals that originated females, is due to its greater weight or size in relation to males.…”

“…The duration of the larvae and pupa stages and the egg-adult period of C. teucer japetus were similar to the values of 51.5, 18.1 and 78.1 days, respectively, for C. eurilochus fed with S. spontaneum and Cyrtostachus sp. leaves (Malo and Willis, 1961), greater than the 32, 13 and 45 days, respectively, of C. illioneus fed with H. velloziana leaves (Specht and Paluch, 2009) and that of the 46.5, 14 and 67 days with banana leaves (Penz et al, 1999). These differences indicate, once again, that the duration of the larvae, pupa and egg stages vary with the Caligo species and with the host plant and temperature.…”