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104 Sevastopulo: "Toxic" Lost plants Vol.18: no.2
birds, or perhaps tarsiers. Actually, a Hestia which soared up the coconut tree when chased was seen to become entangled in a strong web and was immediately stunned by the spider. Because of their large size, many an Amathusia escaped from the jaws of lizards, suffering at most about a fifth of their wings lost to the predators, which missed the vital part of the body. Uniformity of these bite marks on their wings showed that the attacks were mostly made when the prey were at rest with folded wings.
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LEPIDOPTERA OVIPOSITING ON PLANTS TOXIC TO LARVAE
I can quote two East African examples analogous to those quoted by Mr. Straatman (Journ. lepid. soc. 16: 99-103; 1962).
Charaxes brutus Cr., and its subspecies natalensis Staud., with a considerable number of recorded food-plants, now lays freely on an introduced plant Melia azedarach L. (Meliaceae), commonly called Persian Lilac, but such larvae invariably die in their first instar despite the fact that they feed freely. On the other hand I have transferred last instar larvae from other food-plants to M. azedarach and they have completed their metamorphosis successfully.
Van Someren records Charaxes lasti Gr. Sm. as laying on Afzelia quanzensis Welw. (Caesalpinaceae), and I have obtained ova freely from captive females caged over the same plant. My larvae have all, however, died in the first instar and Van Someren also states that he has failed to rear the species through.
The case of the Australian subspecies of Papilio demoleus L. is most surprising. In India, where I have bred it in large numbers, it has a fairly wide range of food-plants belonging to the Rutaceae, and its near ally P. demodocus Esp. in East Africa is the same. To have diverged from the normal food-plants of the group to the extent that it cannot develop on them seems to indicate a very wide separation from the parent species.
I would like to query Mr. Straatman's use of the term "toxic" in this context; to me "toxic" implies something active or positive, but my impression is that in these cases the trouble is more passive or negative, the plants in question lacking something essential to the larva's development.
D. G. Sevastopulo, P. O. Box 5026, Mombasa, KENYA
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