European Nymphalis antiopa???

[irisscientist]

Dear all,

Many apologies for posting this thread here, but was hoping it might please receive a little more attention.  As most of you will know I am conducting research on butterflies belonging to family Apaturinae (the Emperors). As part of this work however I am also exploring certain aspects of the biology of Nymphalis antiopa, which if you are unaware has 2 distinct populations based both in the USA and the other in central Europe. Unlike the European populations (which do not breed in captivity and only have a single generation per year), the USA populations happily breed in captivity and have up to 4 generations per year.  I have recently analysed the wing compounds of these 2 different populations via GC-MS and have identified that the US populations appear to possess an additional (presumed) contact pheromone compound (n-Tetracosane), which is comparable to many other similar pheromone compounds that I have identified in other Nymphalidae species.

My reason for writing here however is because I would now like to try synthetic application of this (n-Tetracosane), compound onto the wings of EU specimens in order to ascertain if this makes any difference in captive breeding or generation numbers in the EU specimens? Unfortunately however, this species are not native to UK and due to their lack of captive breeding opportunities, are rarely (if ever) possible to acquire here in the UK. I wondered therefore if any of you, know or have any other EU entomology contacts who might please have any opportunities to acquire any diapausing adults of this species, or alternatively might have access to any early season pupae in which we might please be able to test your current hypothesis during the coming 2018 season?

Many thanks in advance for any/all assistance.


I was unable to post the photo to the board (said the limit was full), so here is a link to the photo:

photos.app.goo.gl/PFKmfb3Mi62SyAyA3


Mark

[jmg]

This is not obvious ! Here in France, N. antiopa is not very common, and absent in the vicinity of Paris where I live. It is found mainly in the South and East. Note that I happened to meet samples of this species in spring having overwintered (in Lozere mountains). The butterfly is much more common in Russia and Siberia (Ussuri, for example). Russian entomologists should be contacted. The simplest way would be to place a query on the Russian lepidopterist forum:

www.molbiol.ru/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t214757-200.html

eversmannia.entomology.ru/eng_index.htm

[jhyatt]

You must mean n-tetracosane, not tetracosnae. I presume you plan to buy a sample of n-tetracosane from an organic chemicals supply house, like Sigma-Aldrich... Someone in your local chem. dept. might well already have it on hand for use as a GC internal standard.

I seem to recall some old Orley Tayor work on Colias contact pheromones which indicated that they also use non-volatile hydrocarbons in the tetracosane size range. I wonder if use of the same compounds as contact pheromones evolved more than once?

Best of luck,
JH

[bobw]

Mark

I've sent you an email about this.

Bob

[wollastoni]

Feb 27, 2018 21:00:14 GMT irisscientist said:

Many apologies for posting this thread here

Do not apologise for posting here for entomological research.
Many of ICF members are involved in entomological research and we will be happy to help you.

I also recommend you to ask on facebook entomological groups where many Eastern Europeans are present, here for example : www.facebook.com/groups/419259944829599/

Ladislav Misko is industrially producing aberrant leps he's breeding. I guess he can easily have access to N. antiopa larvaes : www.facebook.com/ladislav.misko?fref=gs&hc_ref=ARSzZvNC74TM9KpJWHC26y4FlihEgkvGm_ulOagTnk_xxxMXlwunjAVw6Db0g2X6gRY&dti=122041804807561&hc_location=group_dialog

Hope it helps.


One favour I'm asking you : keep us posted about the results of your current and previous research. Many of us will be very interested !

[irisscientist]

Dear all.

Many thanks for the suggestions. I am pretty much trying all options available at present. I was lucky enough to be sent a few specimens from a kind contact in Slovakia, but the males have died despite winter feeding. I still have a few EU females. US stocks are doing great, as usual. I've corrected the typo thanks jhyatt and added a link to the GC-MS photo (in the original post) as I wasn't able to upload it due a 'board limit' being full notification?

I'll copy the photo link here as well:

photos.app.goo.gl/PFKmfb3Mi62SyAyA3

All suggestions are welcomed. Many continued regards,


Mark