Introduction
Peninsular Malaysia is rich in butterflies. It has 1048 species according to Corbet and Pendlebury, fifth edition (2020) or C&P5 for short. C&P5 lists 1051 species for Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore where three are exclusive to Singapore. A fourth, Cabbage White, Pieris canidia canidia, listed as exclusive has since been discovered in the Johore, i.e. 1048 species for Peninsular Malaysia. This, for a small landmass. The much bigger Thailand has 1287 species, and the a-lot-bigger United States of America has only 750 species. And the whole of the European Union has only 482 species. Thus, we are lucky to have such a pretty good number of species.
Butterflies and Zoogeographical Regions
But by far the country with the highest number of butterfly species is Peru with over 3700, which is about 20% of world total. The zoogeographical region that includes Peru, basically from Mexico down to all of South America, known as the Neotropical, has the highest number of butterflies (7784 species) compared to other regions. Ours, the Oriental, includes the Indian subcontinent, southern China, and South-east Asia except eastern areas of Indonesia which are a part of the Australian region. The Oriental has the third highest number of butterfly species (2411) after the Afrotropical region (3964). See Figure 1.
The other regions are Nearctic, Palaearctic (together, the Holarctic – 2224), and Arctic.
Figure 1. This map of zoogeographical regions by Alfred Wallace 1876 uses Ethiopian Region for the Afrotropical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoogeography#/media/File:Wallace03.jpg
Butterflies and the Last Ice Age
One reason why the Neotropics has such a high butterfly diversity has to do with the last ice age, 25,000 to 15,000 years ago. Where most of the Oriental region has very little rainforest because of the dry climate the Neotropics has the most of all the regions. Peninsular Malaysia itself is mostly grassland and monsoon dry forest. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. A GIS-based Vegetation Map of the World at the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000-15,000 BP). Internet Archaeology 11. By Locoluis – Map generated from shapefile published by Ray, N. and J. M. Adams. 2001, Source: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue11/rayadams_toc.html, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42569666
Tropical rainforests have the highest diversity of species and thus it is not surprising that the Neotropics has the most species. Apart from the rainforests another reason is that there are many ecosystem niches in the Neotropics. For example, Peru has tropical lowland, highland, coastal, and desert. The more different niches there are the more species to be had. It helps too that the Neotropics has a larger landmass than the Oriental. This goes also for birds with the Neotropics having the highest bird diversity of all the regions. The same applies for many other creatures.
Butterfly Families
Butterflies of the world are divided into seven families: Papilionidae, Hedylidae, Hesperiidae, Pieridae, Riodinidae, Lycaenidae, and Nymphalidae. All families are available here except Hedylidae (moth-butterflies) which is only found in Central and South America. Butterflies belong to the superfamily Papilionoidea.
According to C&P5, the 1051 butterfly species of the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore – although to be technically correct, it includes southern Thailand too) is distributed in the six families as follows: Papilionidae (45 species), Pieridae (47), Nymphalidae (281), Riodinidae (16), Lycaenidae (402), and Hesperiidae (260), i.e., Lycaenidae has the most number of species followed by Nymphalidae and Hesperiidae. As a comparison, for Peninsular Malaysia (and Singapore), we have 673 species of birds divided into 84 families.
Our national butterfly, a Papilionidae, is the Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing, Trogonoptera brookiana, Sayapburung Rajah Brooke.
Trogonoptera brookiana, Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing, Sayapburung Rajah Brooke. Male
Trogonoptera brookiana, Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing, Sayapburung Rajah Brooke. Female
Sexual Dimorphism
It can be seen that for the Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing, male and female are different, i.e. they exhibit sexual dimorphism. Many butterflies (as also birds, and others) are sexually dimorphic though others are not. One advantage in being dimorphic is, it is easier to spot the opposite sex for mating.
Wet and Dry Season Forms
Another polymorphism is the wet and dry forms, termed polyphenism i.e., a species that looks different in the wet season from the dry. Its got to do with camouflage, to hide in its environment which of course is different in the wet and dry seasons. This is not so much in equatorial areas which don’t really have distinct wet and dry seasons but for the tropical area of North-West PM. And of course further north into peninsular Thailand. For example, this Common Five-Ring, Ypthima baldus, Bulatan Lima, from India:
Ypthima baldus, Common Five-Ring, Bulatan Lima. Wet season form from India.
By Vengolis – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28041939
Ypthima baldus, Common Five-Ring, Bulatan Lima. Dry season form from India.
By J.M.Garg – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3474965
Atypical form
Occasionally an individual looks very different from the norm of its species. This aberrant form is now described as rare or atypical form.
Butterflies and Moths
Butterflies and moths are of the order Lepidoptera (scale-winged insects). Butterflies are of the sub-order Rhopalocera (of club-shaped antennae) and moths the Heterocera (non club-shaped antennae) although these are non-scientific classifications. Scientifically there is no division between butterflies and moths (C&P5).
But physically and behaviourally there are differences between them. Generally, butterflies settle with wings upright while moths have their wings flat. That is, we see the underside of butterflies and upperside of moths. But there are exceptions. Butterflies bask in the sun with wings flat when they are trying to warm up especially in the morning sun. Also, the flat skipper butterflies of the family Hesperiidae subfamily Pyrginae settle with the wings open as the name suggests. And many moths, including geometrid moths (North America only) hold their wings up in a butterfly-like fashion when resting.
Conservation
Why do we bother with butterflies? For one thing they are around us, in our environment, in our garden, parks, meadows, and forests. It helps too that many of them are brightly coloured and beautiful. They make for a wonderful world. This makes us want to know them, study them, buy binoculars to watch them, and with cameras, photograph them, enabling their study at leisure. And in the age of social media, share their beautiful photos. It is no surprise that the other hobby apart from butterfly watching – or butterflying – for much the same reason is bird watching or birding.
Another reason we bother or should bother with butterflies is for their importance to the ecosystem and thus to our own survival. They are pollinators and thus enable production of
Papilio prexaspes prexaspes—Blue Helen, Papilio Perawan Biru, a pollinator.
fruits whose seeds are the next flora generation. That is, they provide the continuity between the generation of plants. Three-fourths of all flowering plants are pollinated by insects, as well as the crops that produce more than one-third of the world’s food supply. Other butterflies recycle nutrients by feeding on rotting fruits, carrion, and faeces. Without them the world
Xanthotaenia busiris busiris—Yellow Barred Pan, Dewi Jalur Kuning, a nutrient recycler, feeding on a fallen fruit.
would be a smelly, and worse, a diseased one. Moths too provide the same ecosystem services as butterflies, except mainly at night. Apart from providing these services butterflies and moths form part of the food web, that is, they are food to their predators ̶ birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.
But butterflies and moths as well as other insects are declining in species numbers and biomass. They are dying towards extinction. Over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction with Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and dung beetles (Coleoptera) the taxa most affected. Habitat loss by conversion to intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines. Agro-chemical pollutants, invasive species and climate change are additional causes. In a 2018 study, over the past 30 years, forest temperatures in Puerto Rico have risen 2.0 °C, and the study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web. The impact of climate change on tropical ecosystems may be much greater than currently anticipated.
As the saying goes, no insects equal no food equal no humans. If humans went extinct tomorrow nothing too much would happen to the planet (in fact, it would rejuvenate, with forests and other habitats reviving) but insect extinction could be cataclysmic.
There were areas in China, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan where there were not enough insect pollinators left that there were pollination failures in apple-growing areas of these countries. In Maoxian county in China this lack of insect pollinators was due to habitat loss and four decades of pesticide use. To have this pollination then for their apple orchards the people had to do it manually using brushes to pick the male pollen and brushing against the female flower parts. All this a service used to be provided for free by butterflies, moths and other pollinators.
One of the most iconic butterflies is the Monarch, Danaus plexippus, of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In early Autumn, populations from North-east US and South-east Canada
Danaus plexippus, Monarch butterfly.
By Rbreidbrown – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79922049
migrate to the mountains of central Mexico, distances that can reach 4500 km and over. There they hibernate till mid-March when they then make the return journey. But the world may not witness this phenomenon in the future. The Monarch is in sharp decline such that the US Fish and Wildlife Service says putting it in the list of endangered species is warranted. Among the factors causing the decline are habitat destruction and fragmentation, and the destruction of their larval host plant, the milkweeds, again, from pesticides. Climate change too is creating weather patterns that post threats to the Monarch.
In Peninsular Malaysia, the Tree Nymph, Idea lynceus, is regarded as endangered according to the Melaka Butterfly and Reptile Sanctuary (MBRS). Of 200 eggs laid only 2 to 4% survive. Commercial breeding increased the survival rate to 90% but because of Covid-19 MBRS has not been able to breed the Nymph because of lack of funds and it could be facing extinction they further said. MBRS claimed that they were the only conservatory in the world doing breeding for the Nymph.
Life cycle of the Tree Nymph, Idea lynceus, Bidadari Pohon. Poster from MBRS
What You Can Do to Conserve Butterflies
To prevent further decline of butterflies, moths, bees, birds and other pollinators and recyclers we need to tackle the causes of their decline. The main causes that we keep coming across were habitat destruction and pesticide use. Thus, we must stop using pesticides. And we must conserve and revive the habitats such as forests, meadows, and wetlands. The added benefit of conserving these habitats for the Lepidopterans is we also conserve them for other creatures natural to these habitats – mammals, reptiles, amphibians and others.
Papilio polytes romulus—Common Mormon. Kekupu Mormon, female, on a forest flower.
Nocturnal moths and other insects face another cause to their decline – light pollution. Night lights attract these insects to them and eventually killing them. Putting these lights in the forest as streetlight, for example, will kill insects in huge numbers. We must really avoid having roads and their streetlights in forests. One way to reduce insect light attraction is to use an LED with a warm colour temperature which has the lowest insect capture. The incandescent bulb has the highest capture rate, followed by CFL, halogen, LED with a cool colour temperature, and the “bug” light. But given that streetlights are turned on every night for years on end, it does not really matter since it just takes a little longer to wipe-out insects using even the least-capture lights.
Light pollution harms trees too by affecting the plants’ cycles apart from affecting their pollinators. Some plants only flower when the night is totally dark, for example, many cacti species.
But conserving forests and avoiding streetlight pollution are beyond most individual’s capacity in conserving Lepidopterans and other creatures. So, what can we do as individuals to help their conservation?
If you have a garden, plant local, native plants with flowers that attract pollinators. Non-native plants maybe invasive, out-crowding native plants and thus disturbing the ecosystem balance.
Cepora nadina andersoni—Lesser Gull. Camar Kecil, on Lantana camara (Bunga Tahi Ayam), a non-native species that has spread far and wide, popular with local butterflies.
Remember that white, fragrant flowers bloom in the night thus attracting nocturnal moths and bats while colourful and odourless ones bloom during the day and attract butterflies, bees and birds. But beware that many ornamental plants with bright colourful flowers are beautiful but don’t provide nectar. The plants need to be varied such that there are plants that flower the whole year round, some that flower in certain months and others in other months such that there is always nectar available for the butterflies. Consider too having host plants for the larvae, the caterpillars.
If you can’t devote the whole garden to pollinator-attracting plants, then consider allowing a section for such purpose. Consider too to allow the section or the borders of the garden to grow wild. This eventually grows “weeds” that attract pollinators.
What plants to attract what butterflies depend on the location of your house. If its urban then only urban butterflies are available to visit the plants. Thus, the plants need to be those that urban butterflies would be attracted to. Similarly, to other locations and habitats. No point, say, planting the Aganosma species to attract the Tree Nymph when it’s not available in the urban habitat.
Butterfly Habitat Distribution
About half of the butterfly species of the peninsula (1048) occur only below 750m in the lowlands, that is, about 525 species. One seventh are found only above that elevation in the montane habitat, that is, about 150 species. The rest, 375 species, are found in both habitats. Thus, about 900 species are found in the lowlands and about 525 species in the highlands. This again indicates the species richness of the lowland habitat, especially the forests, even accounting for the bigger area of the lowlands.
Among the various regions of the peninsula, the distribution is as follows: Kedawi, 559 species; peninsula proper (minus Kedawi and other regions), 1022; Tioman group, 217; and Singapore, 320.
Butterfly Life Cycle
The butterfly experiences a life cycle from egg or ovum to larva or caterpillar to pupa or chrysalis to adult or imago.
Egg. They are laid or oviposited by the female butterfly singly in most species or in clusters in a few, on or near its larval host plant. Each species has a limited number of host plants, often just one or two. The eggs come in different shapes and sizes depending on the species,
Eggs of a butterfly species laid in clusters. By Волков Владислав Петрович – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20123823
spherical, cylindrical or flask shaped. They are clear when initially laid but darken as the larvae inside develop. The egg structure is a characteristic of the family or subfamily, that is, they can be used to identify the family or subfamily. Some species may coat the eggs with a toxic glue to deter predators. After two or three days the caterpillar hatches from the egg.
Caterpillar. Upon hatching the first thing that the caterpillar eats is its own shell, either for its nutrients or to remove the tell-tale sign of its presence or both. It is either a herbivore or carnivore. As a herbivore, it is a voracious eater of leaves, flowers, etc, depending on the species and grows fast. Soon the outer skin cannot extend further and requires moulting into a new bigger skin. The state between the moults is called an instar. There are four or five instars but can be as many as nine. Upon moulting the old skin is eaten. Those that were laid in clusters may behave as a group rather than spreading singly. Caterpillars most often feed at night since it is harder to be spotted by predators. Some plants eaten are toxic but the caterpillar has develop some or complete immunity to it that it survives. The toxins get incorporated in its body and are passed on to the pupa and adult. When a predator eats the caterpillar or pupa or the adult butterfly it will be left with an unpleasant taste if not outright killed. The predators that survived learn to recognise which are the toxic ones. The toxic ones then have no fear of feeding during the day.
Caterpillars and butterflies that are toxic often are brightly coloured, advertising their toxicity. This colour advertising is called aposematic colouration. Aposematism is not only in
The aposematic warning colouration of a caterpillar of a Papilio species. By Hectonichus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12573003
the lepidopterans but in many other animals too, such as amphibians and reptiles (but not birds and mammals). Many papilionid larvae produce bad smells from extrudable glands called osmeteria (singular, osmeterium) to deter predators.
Osmeterium of a Papilio species. Upper: Osmeterium partly everted. Lower: undisturbed.
By Alpsdake – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15807206
Most caterpillars are plant feeders (phytophagous) but some species are carnivores, feeding on aphids or their secretions, mealy bugs, ant larvae, or food regurgitated by ants. All species of the Lycaenid subfamily Miletinae, and some of the other subfamilies, show this feeding behaviour. Those that feed on ant larvae trick the ants using pheromones as if they are one of their own. They are then taken to the ants’ nests and thereupon turning upon the ant larvae.
Ant tending a lycaenid caterpillar, Catapaecilma major, Greater Tinsel. Kilau Besar.
By Balakrishnan Valappil – CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67293960
The above members of the Lycaenidae then, and some of the Riodinidae family, are associated with ants. They don’t feed on plants but feed on aphids etc as mentioned above. They in turn require the protection of ants from predators and to induce that protection the caterpillars feed the ants with sweet secretions from their bodies. The association is complete
Eooxylides tharis distanti —Branded Imperial. Agung Bertanda, a Lycaenidae, showing an association with ants.
that these butterfly species cannot survive without the ants.
Just as the eggs show characteristics of the family or subfamily so do the larvae and thus as in the case of eggs can be used for identification as to the family and subfamily. For example, those of the Papilionoids are spindle-shaped with fleshy or spiny tubercles or smooth with a hump just behind the head as can be seen in the Papilio caterpillar photos. In the Oriental species of Cyrestinae the horned and smooth larvae have two sickle-shaped dorsal spines.
Pupa. In the final instar, after reaching its maximum size, the caterpillar looks for a secluded
Common crow butterfly, Euploea core chrysalis, illustrating the Ancient Greek origin of the term chrysós for gold. By VirenVaz, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
spot to moult into a pupa. Its colour is one that makes it blend into the environment. The pupa is secured in a variety of ways usually to a branch but in some species the pupa hides itself in the ground. Those attached to a branch, the head may be up or down. Some have a silken thread securing the mid body to a branch. Within the pupa enzymes break down the cells
Another example of a pupa or chrysalis. https://pixabay.com/photos/pupa-cocoon-butterfly-chrysalis-3978412/
except those called imaginal discs, that persist throughout the instars, to rebuild the body into that of the imago, the adult butterfly. For local butterflies, this can take between one to two weeks. In the final hours the skin of the pupa turns transparent showing the imago inside. It breaks open the pupal skin and emerges or ecloses. Fluids are pump into the vein-like structures in the wings to stretch and strengthen the wings into their final shapes. The “veins” do not carry nutrients unlike human veins, more like structures to strengthen and make the wings relatively rigid. Eclosures usually happen early in the morning.
Note that, although the sudden and rapid change from pupa to imago is often called metamorphosis, the term is really for the whole series of changes that an insect undergoes from egg to adult.
Adult. The eclosed adult is the final shape and size. It doesn’t grow anymore with feeding. Any damage to the wings and other body parts are not repaired. Its only purpose is to mate and reproduce. In fact, in some species, a male might mate with a just eclosed female when it is still not ready for flight. But for the first one or two days its focus is on feeding to obtain energy before its only purpose. Once mated the female seeks its larval host plant to oviposit her eggs while the male goes on his way to mate with other females. Similarly with the female once she has laid her eggs. The eggs are fertilised with the sperm of the male by the female releasing the sperm she stored from the male and enters each egg from the top through an opening called the micropyle. Adults live only for a few weeks at most although those in temperate climate that go through a phase called diapause, rather like hibernation, in winter can live much longer.
Morphology
Butterflies are insects and as such have the basic anatomy of insects such as three body sections of head, thorax, and abdomen. And they have three pairs of legs, compound eyes, and antennae, as shown in the figure below, using the example of the
Morphology of Tirumala limniace. Male.
By Dr. Raju Kasambe – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76311864
Blue Glassy Tiger, Tirumala limniace. All butterflies have two pairs each of forewing and hindwing.
Wing Pattern
For butterfly identification, the wing patten is the most used. Each species, and often identification is to the subspecies level, has its own pattern although some are quite variable such as the Striped Blue Crow, Euploea mulciber mulciber, or the lowland version of the Small Wood Nymph, Ideopsis gaura perakana, of Batu Caves, and that of the highlands, example from Fraser’s Hill, has some differences. Nevertheless, for most species, the wing
Butterfly wing terms.
L. Shyamal, CC BY-SA 3.0 wikimedia.org
pattern is the most useful, the go-to means for identification. The top of the wing is the apex whilst the opposite end is the tornus, connected by the termen. The apex is connected to the base, which attaches to the thorax, via the costa. And the tornus is connected to the base via the dorsum. Within the wing various segments are named such as basal, post basal, discal etc. Apart from these named segments another means to help identification is the spaces between the veins. One scheme to name the spaces is called the Comstock Notation but a more widely used system is called the Numerical Notation as shown in the figure above.
Survival Strategies
Aposematic colouring. There are several strategies taken by butterflies to survive their predators. One is already mentioned above, the use of aposematic colouring, i.e., vivid colours to indicate that it is toxic, unpleasant, or even fatal when eaten.
Mimicry. One strategy taken by a non-toxic butterfly is to mimic a toxic one. This mimicry is called Batesian mimicry after the work of Henry Bates with butterflies in the 19th century. The non-toxic is called the mimic and the one being mimicked, the model. An example is the Wanderer, Pareronia valeria, and the Yellow Glassy Tiger, Parantica aspasia.
Wanderer, Pareronia valeria, Pengembara. Nickswildlife.org. https://nickswildlife.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/malayan-wanderer-pareronia-valeria.jpg
Yellow Glassy Tiger, Parantica aspasia, Harimau Kaca Kuning.
Mimicry is seldom perfect. But in the field, it’s not easy for predators to spot the difference between the mimic and the model especially when in flight.
Further Reading
-No of butterfly species and zoogeographical regions
-17,500 species of butterflies in the world, and around 750 species in the United States.
-European Union has only 482 species
-Peru has over 3,700 butterfly species https://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Butterfly%20Facts.htm
– Why the Neotropics has such a high butterfly diversity – Ice age forests refugia more there.
– geometrid moths hold their wings up like resting butterflies https://australian.museum/learn/animals/insects/what-are-the-differences-between-butterflies-and-moths/
– two crucial features that distinguish the butterfly from the moth: antennae, frenulum C&P5
-Rhopalocera butterflies and moths the Heterocera are non-scientific classifications – C&P5
-120 families of Lepidoptera with only seven for butterflies… The Hedylidae, are nocturnal
-Cells in a moth antenna amplify chemical signals …this club helps butterflies measure the air’s temperature, or go into butterfly hibernation, called diapause
-Sun moth with clubbed antenna, Regent skipper with frenulum https://australian.museum/learn/animals/insects/what-are-the-differences-between-butterflies-and-moths/#gallery-218-9
-157,000 Lepidoptera species with 18,000 being butterflies – C&P5
– Butterflies evolved from moths
– Phil Schappert, A World for Butterflies
– Over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction
– forest temperatures in Puerto Rico have risen 2.0 °C https://www.pnas.org/content/115/44/E10397
-Three-fourths of all flowering plants are pollinated by insects, as well as the crops that produce more than one-third of the world’s food supply
– No insects equals no food, [which] equals no people,” says Dino Martins, an entomologist at Kenya’s Mpala Research Centre and a National Geographic Explorer… If humans went extinct tomorrow nothing too much would happen to the planet, but insect extinction could be cataclysmic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/why-insect-populations-are-plummeting-and-why-it-matters/
-pollination failure, Maoxian County
– Monarch butterflies embark on a marvelous migratory phenomenon. They travel between 1,200 and 2,800 miles https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/monarch-butterfly
-Threats impacting monarchs. Habitat loss and fragmentation has occurred throughout the monarch’s range. Pesticide use can destroy the milkweed monarchs need to survive. A changing climate has intensified weather events which may impact monarch populations.
-On December 15, 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that listing the monarch as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act is warranted,
https://www.fws.gov/savethemonarch/
-Malaysian Giant tree nymph, a threatened species??
-https://thaibutterflies.com/Butterflies/idea-lynceus/
-Tree nymph faces a risk of extinction as the 16-year research on the rare species conducted at the Melaka Butterfly and Reptile Sanctuary
-host plant The larvae feed on Aganosma corymbosa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea_lynceus
–The incandescent bulb had the highest capture rate, followed by CFL, halogen, LED with a cool color temperature, and the “bug” light. An LED with a warm color temperature had the lowest capture rate.https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper17736.html?_ga=1.113591172.2084989710.1452005787-Light pollution harms trees too.
– How you can conserve butterflies etc https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/150524-bees-pollinators-animals-science-gardens-plants
– Host plant – Idea lynceus Malaysian Giant Tree Nymph Aganosma sp. https://www.butterflyreptile.com/pages/butterfly-conservation
-Butterfly Habitat Distribution C&P5
– Definition of metamorphosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupa
-imaginal discs (that persist throughout the instars) metamorphosise pupa to imago. Schappert (2005)
0Mullerian mimicry