Philip J Devries

University of New Orleans | UNO · Department of Biological Sciences

Mutualistic interactions between butterflies and ants can evolve into complex social parasitism. ‘Cuckoo’ caterpillars, known only in the Lycaenidae, use multimodal mimetic traits to achieve social integration into ant societies. Here, we present the first known ‘cuckoo’ butterfly in the family Riodinidae. Aricoris arenarum remained in taxonomic li...

The global increase in species richness toward the tropics across continents and taxonomic groups, referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient, stimulated the formulation of many hypotheses to explain the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. We evaluate several of these hypotheses to explain spatial diversity patterns in a butterfly family,...

Regional species diversity is explained ultimately by speciation, extinction and dispersal. Here, we estimate dispersal and speciation rates of Neotropical butterflies to propose an explanation for the distribution and diversity of extant species. We focused on the tribe Brassolini (owl butterflies and allies), a Neotropical group that comprises 17...

Mutualistic interactions between butterflies and ants can evolve into complex social parasitism. 'Cuckoo' caterpillars, known only in the Lycaenidae, use multimodal mimetic traits to achieve social integration into ant societies. Here, we present the first known 'cuckoo' butterfly in the family Riodinidae. Aricoris arenarum remained in taxonomic li...

In general, butterfly ventral hind wing eyespots are considered to play a role in predator–prey interactions. These eyespots are prominent wing pattern elements in Brassolini butterflies, and they vary in size, position, and number across taxa. Female Caligo Hübner, 1819 (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) appear to use the large eyespots of lekking males a...

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is arguably one of the most striking patterns in nature. The global increase in species richness toward the tropics across continents and taxonomic groups stimulated the formulation of many hypotheses to explain the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. We evaluated several of these hypotheses to explain sp...

Regional species diversity is ultimately explained by speciation, extinction, and dispersal. Here we estimate dispersal and speciation rates in Neotropical rainforest biomes to propose an explanation for the distribution and diversity of extant butterfly species. We focus on the tribe Brassolini (owl butterflies and allies): a Neotropical group tha...

Neotropical butterflies in the nymphalid genera Pierella Herrich-Schäffer, 1865 (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) and Cithaerias Hübner, 1819 (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) are known to glide near ground level, and have a high forewing aspect ratio. The hind wings of Pierella are proportionately larger than those of Cithaerias, suggesting a potential role in...

Many tropical fruit-feeding nymphalid butterflies are associated with either the forest canopy or the understorey; however, the exceptions offer insights into the origins of tropical diversity. As it occurs in both habitats of tropical forests in Ecuador and Peru, Archaeoprepona demophon is one such exception. We compared patterns of occurrence of...

Throughout its range in Africa, Papilio dardanus Brown, 1776 (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) displays female-limited mimicry of multiple model species, and the absence of hind wing tails is an important component of their mimetic convergence. Nonmimetic P. dardanus females have a narrow, disjunct distribution (Ethiopia, Madagascar, Comoros), and resemb...

Cunizza hirlanda tirimbina Chacón, DeVries & Penz, new subspecies is described from Costa Rica. The male and female genitalia of this species are illustrated here for the first time. The DNA barcode sequence is provided for one of the paratypes, and it differs by 2.58% from C. hirlanda niguida from Peru.

Tropical dry forests are among the most diverse and threatened habitats in the world, yet they are rarely protected and remain poorly studied. In Brazil, dry forests are naturally fragmented and embedded within various biomes, thus making it important to assess biotic homogeneity among geographically separated forest fragments. We sampled 7732 indi...

One of the most tangible outcomes of climate change is change in the frequency of El Niño/La Niña events. They have a large impact on rainfall in the Western hemisphere, but their impact on tropical fauna is largely unknown. A decade long capture-mark-recapture study of the widespread Ecuadorian butterfly Nessaea hewitsoni (Felder & Felder) from an...

A comparative study of over 1,000 specimens allowed us to revise the taxonomy of the Amazonian butterfly genus Bia. We redescribed the genus, and used a selected set of characters to define and describe new species and subspecific taxa. We found that male genitalia showed little variation among taxa, and that wing and genitalia characters varied in...

A comparative study of over 1,000 specimens allowed us to revise the taxonomy of the Amazonian butterfly genus Bia. We redescribed the genus, and used a selected set of characters to define and describe new species and subspecific taxa. We found that male genitalia showed little variation among taxa, and that wing and genitalia characters varied in...

We assessed responses in grooming behavior to ectoparasite densities in naturally occurring white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in southwest Alabama, and tested predictions of the stimulus-driven and programmed grooming models with respect to intraspecific body size and vigilance. Stimulus-driven grooming predicts greater tick densities woul...

Tropical fruit-feeding nymphalid butterflies generally restrict adult foraging exclusively to either the canopy or understory strata. We compared canopy and understory butterfly communities using data from four long-term studies in Central and South America. At all study sites we found little similarity in species composition between canopy and und...

Birds are able to recognize and learn to avoid attacking unpalatable, chemically defended butterflies after unpleasant experiences with them. It has also been suggested that birds learn to avoid prey that are efficient at escaping. This, however, remains poorly documented. Here, we argue that butterflies may utilize a variety of escape tactics agai...

The editors of this volume asked contributors to offer personal narratives related to the study of Lepidoptera, in my case butterflies. I have studied tropical butterflies for a long time and in many locations. Early on, butterflies influenced the paths I chose in life, and they have remained part of my philosophical rudder. My memory swarms with t...

When considering Neotropical Lepidoptera for conservation purposes moths are usually neglected because little is known about their biology, ecology and taxonomy. Using light-traps, we sampled moths in the subfamily Arctiinae (Noctuoidea: Erebidae) along an elevational transect (7–927 m asl) on a steep slope of Atlantic Forest in the southern region...

Flight is a key innovation in the evolutionary success of insects and essential to dispersal, territoriality, courtship and oviposition. Wing shape influences flight performance and selection likely acts to maximize performance for conducting essential behaviours that in turn results in the evolution of wing shape. As wing shape also contributes to...

Spatial movement is fundamental to ecological and evolutionary processes because of its role in habitat colonization and diversification. This study examines the dispersal potential of two Neotropical butterflies, Morpho achilles and Bia actorion, to estimate the time necessary to expand into their current geographical distribution in the Amazon Fo...

This study provides updated species definitions for five rose-colored Cithaerias butterflies, starting with a historical over-view of their taxonomy. Given their mostly transparent wings, genitalia morphology yielded the most reliable characters for species definition and identification. Genitalic divergence is more pronounced when multiple species...

Despite the importance of understanding the effects of tropical seasonality on ecological diversity, few studies have investigated the influence of environmental factors on seasonal community composition, and even fewer use standardized sampling and robust analytical methods that are directly comparable. Our 104 months of sampling in Costa Rican lo...

This study examines the contribution of early-stages and adult characters to the reconstruction of the phylogeny of Brassolini butterflies. Parsimony analyses used both equal weights and implied weights, and a series of analyses were performed. First, we analysed adult and early-stages partitions independently and in combination for a subset of 27...

Butterflies likely represent the most familiar and best known group of all insects. Within the context of human society, butterflies serve as centerpieces in educational media, they are used extensively in the arts, including nature and commercial advertising, and they are used as symbols for religious and social groups. Within the field of biology...

Tropical forest insects are vertically stratified between the canopy and understorey. Using 60 traps set at two heights above the forest floor (30 at 15 cm and 30 at 1 m) we compared abundances in capture height, persistence in traps, and sex of three co-occurring understorey butterflies (Cithaerias pireta, Dulcedo polita and Pierella helvina) in C...

This study compiles previously published morphological, colour and behavioural characters and includes new DNA sequence data for eight markers (one mitochondrial and seven nuclear) to re-evaluate phylogenetic relationships and estimate times of divergence for Morpho butterflies using parsimony and Bayesian methods. We note an effect of missing data...

Anuran amphibian populations worldwide are in decline due to a variety of factors including habitat destruction, climate change, disease, introduction of non-native species, and environmental contamination. We conducted a laboratory trial with Incilius nebulifer (synonym: Bufo nebulifer) to determine at what level salinity negatively affects hatchi...

1. We develop a Bayesian method for analysing mark–recapture data in continuous habitat using a model in which individuals movement paths are Brownian motions, life spans are exponentially distributed and capture events occur at given instants in time if individuals are within a certain attractive distance of the traps. 2. The joint posterior distr...

1. Studies of seasonality in ecological diversity rarely extend over more than a few years, and few studies of seasonal diversity have explicitly investigated the influence of environmental factors on seasonal community composition, especially in tropical communities. 2. Our 10 years of monthly sampling in Amazonian Ecuador yielded 20 996 individua...

This study compiles previously published morphological, colour and behavioural characters and includes new DNA sequence data for eight markers (one mitochondrial and seven nuclear) to re-evaluate phylogenetic relationships and estimate times of divergence for Morpho butterflies using parsimony and Bayesian methods. We note an effect of missing data...

Anuran amphibian populations worldwide are in decline due to a variety of factors including habitat destruction, climate change, disease, introduction of non-native species, and environmental contamination. We conducted a laboratory trial with Incilius nebulifer (synonym: Bufo nebulifer) to determine at what level salinity negatively affects hatchi...

1. Documenting species abundance distributions in natural environments is critical to ecology and conservation biology. Tropical forest insect faunas vary in space and time, and these partitions can differ in their contribution to overall species diversity. 2. In the Neotropics, the Central American butterfly fauna is best known in terms of general...

A new species of the brassoline genus Orobrassolis (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae) is described based on speci-mens collected in the early 1900's from the highland grasslands of Paraná, Brazil. The geological history of these highland grasslands suggests that they underwent climatic fluctuations, with warm climate periods leading to contracti...

A new species of the brassoline genus Orobrassolis (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae) is described based on specimens collected in the early 1900's from the highland grasslands of Paraná, Brazil. The geological history of these highland grasslands suggests that they underwent climatic fluctuations, with warm climate periods leading to contractio...

1. Flight is a key innovation in the evolution of insects that is crucial to their dispersal, migration, territoriality, courtship and predator avoidance. Male butterflies have characteristic territoriality and courtship flight behaviours, and females use a characteristic flight behaviour when searching for host plants. This implies that selection...

Aim Differentiation of sites or communities is often measured by partitioning regional or gamma diversity into additive or multiplicative alpha and beta components. The beta component and the ratio of within-group to total diversity (alpha/gamma) are then used to infer the compositional differentiation or similarity of the sites. There is debate ab...

Resumen: Presentamos la primera descripción completa del ciclo de vida de una especie del género Perisama. Paullinia sp. (Sapindaceae) es la planta hospedera de Perisama oppelii Latreille, 1811 en el noreste de Ecuador. Perisama oppelii tiene cinco estadías, todas están descritas e ilustradas. El ciclo de vida, desde nacimiento hasta adulto, dura 6...

Aim We explore the potential role of the ‘tropical conservatism hypothesis’ in explaining the butterfly species richness gradient in North America. Its applicability can be derived from the tropical origin of butterflies and the presumed difficulties in evolving the cold tolerance required to permit the colonization and permanent occupation of the...

Butterflies are frequently used to investigate Neotropical diversity, but the family Hesperiidae is almost never employed as a focal group. Sampling Hesperiidae with artificial lures has been used to assist in species richness estimates of males that use bird droppings as a resource, but its effectiveness for estimating total hesperiid site diversi...

Here we describe the immature stages and ecological associations of Antirrhea adoptiva porphyrosticta Watkins, 1928 (Lepidoptera:Nymphalidae:Morphinae). The cloud forest bamboo, Chusquea scandens Kunth (Bambusoidea: Poaceae), serves as the larval food plant for this butterfly in eastern Ecuador, the first hostplant record for Antirrhea outside the...

We describe the immature stages Pedaliodes poesia Hewitson, 1862 from northeastern Ecuador. Chusquea scandens (Poaceae, Bambusoidea) is the larval food plant. Eggs are laid singly or in pairs on the bottom side of host plant leaves. The duration of the egg, larval, and pupal stages, combined, is 99–107 days.

The genus Chorinea Gray, 1832 ranges from Central America to southern South America in association with forest habitats from sea level to over 1,000 m elevation (e.g., DeVries 1997, Emery et al. 2006), and is currently thought to include eight species (Callaghan & Lamas 2004). These butterflies are distinct among riodinids by having transparent win...

A sample of over 400 co-occurring species of Neotropical Hesperiidae attracted to artificial lures was used to test for temporal structure among species and explore potential consequences of temporal partitioning within assemblages. Five years of intermittent transect samples at the same site revealed that diel activity was significantly partitione...

The generic names Euptychia, Cissia and Argyreuplychia are reviewed in relation to the Cissia confusa species-group in Costa Rica and Trinidad, for which the generic name Cissia Doubleday is formally resurrected. Three new species of Cissia are described, C. confusa itself is resurrected from synonymy, three neotypes and three lectotypes are design...

The larvae of the lycaenid subfamily Curetinae have never been reported to be associated with ants. Observations on Curetis regula Evans from Brunei are presented which show that this species may be tended by ants both as larvae and adults. The observations are discussed in relation to a recent review on lycaenid/ant associations, u is suggested th...

Observations and experiments are presented on the use oflarval ant-organs by the riodinid butterfly Thisbe irenea with emphasis on their function in myrmecophily. The results indicate that each ant organ plays a distinct role in larval-ant association and that all influence the behaviour of attending ants. Interpretations of the roles that lycaenid...

Based on a Wagner tree analysis of ninety-two characters (eighty-five larval, one egg, six adult), the nymphalid butterfly genera Antirrhea and Caerois are demonstrated to be the closest relatives of the genus Morpho. Accordingly, Antirrhea and Caerois are formally transferred from the Satyrinae to the Morphinae. Without these two genera, the Morph...

Early stage and adult characters ( morphology and behavior) indicated that the riodinid Apodemia paucipuncta had been erroneously placed in the genus Apodemia ( Incertae Sedis, previously in tribe Emesini). To infer the systematic position of paucipuncta, we performed a cladistic analysis using 72 male morphology characters for 36 species placed in...

Entomophagy in the riodinid butterfly tribe Eurybiini is demonstrated for the first time. Alesa amesis caterpillars and adults possess behavioral and morphological traits for feeding on Homoptera nymphs, and oviposition by A. amesis females is mediated by the combined presence of Camponotus femoratus ants and homopteran nymphs. Caterpillars are ent...

Early stage and adult characters (morphology and behavior) indicated that the riodinid Apodemia paucipuncta had been erroneously placed in the genus Apodemia (Incertae Sedis, previously in tribe Emesini). To infer the systematic position of paucipuncta, we performed a cladistic analysis using 72 male morphology characters for 36 species placed in s...

Quick surveys are often used by conservation biologists to assess biodiversity. In tropical forests, fruit-feeding butterflies are a convenient indicator group because they can be readily trapped and are comparatively easy to identify. However, studiescarried out in Costa Rica and Ecuador have revealed that long-term sampling is needed to estimate...