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The relative importance of olfaction and vision in a diurnal and a nocturnal hawkmoth

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Author

Summary, in English

Nectar-feeding animals can use vision and olfaction to find rewarding flowers and different species may give different weight, to the two sensory modalities. We have studied how a diurnal or nocturnal lifestyle affects the weight given to vision and olfaction. We tested naive hawkmoths of two species in a wind tunnel, presenting an odour source and a visual stimulus. Although the two species belong to the same subfamily of sphingids, the Macroglossinae, their behaviour was quite different. The nocturnal Deilephila elpenor responded preferably to the odour while the diurnal Macroglossum stellatarum strongly favoured the visual stimulus. Since a nocturnal lifestyle is ancestral for sphingids, the diurnal species, M. stellatarum, has evolved from nocturnal moths that primarily used olfaction. During bright daylight visual cues may have became more important than odour.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

431-437

Publication/Series

Journal of Comparative Physiology A

Volume

192

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Zoology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Lund Vision Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1432-1351