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Volume 27, Number 2
157
ABNORMALITIES AND HEREDITY
Mr. Manley's paper, "Two Mosaic Gynandromorphs of Automeris io (Saturniidae)," (1971, J. Lep. Soc. 25: 234-238), has, to me, a most surprising omission—he does not mention whether or not the two specimens he describes came from the same brood. Many abnormalities, spiral segmentation for example, would appear to have some hereditary basis, and Ford (1955, Moths, p. 39) quotes a case where a brood of Hemerophila abruptaria Thnbg. (Geometridae) contained no fewer than four gynandromorphs.
This phenomenon appears to be far more common, or far more often observed, in Great Britain than in America, to judge from reading Mr. Manley's paper. Hardly a year goes by without there being some reference to one or more cases in the various British entomological journals. Cockayne, in a paper published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London in 1916, illustrated no fewer than twenty-one gynandromorphs of the lycaenid Lysandra coridon Poda.
Reverting to my remarks on spiral segmentation, the only two cases which have come to my personal knowledge have both involved more than one individual in a brood. In one case, a brood of the nymphalid Euxanthe wakefieldi Ward bred by a friend, the majority of the larvae died of disease before developing the characteristic and revealing dorsal markings; out of the five or six that reached maturity, two were examples of spiral segmentation, and it is more than probable that there were other examples undetected among the larvae that died earlier. The other case was in a brood of the noctuid Leucania irregularis Wlk., which contained at least four examples of spiral segmentation. Unfortunately the brood, which was divided into three batches at an early stage, suffered severe casualties; two of the three batches were wiped out by virus disease when still small, and a large number of the third batch was used to provide live food for some insectivorous birds before the abnormalities were detected, so that, here again, it is more than probable that a considerably larger number of spirals were actually present in the brood.
Might I end on a note of criticism of Mr. Manley's paper. Surely it is incorrect to write (top of p. 235) "Thus cells of the male with ZZ chromosomes are expressed as yellow, while those of the female with a ZO chromosome complement are rosy brown." Would it not be more correct to state that the scales and hairs arising from cells with ZZ chromosomes are yellow and those from cells with ZO chromosomes are rosy brown? It is unfortunate that the figures are too dark to allow the pattern of the 'broken eye blotch* to be seen.
D. G. Sevastopulo, F.R.E.S., P.O. Box 95026, Mombasa, Kenya.
HOST RECORDS FOR BREPHIDIUM EXILIS (LYCAENIDAE)
The Western Pygmy Blue, Brephidium exilis Boisduval, is generally recorded as feeding on Chenopodiaceae, but specific host identifications are few. Downey (1961, in Ehrlich & Ehrlich, How to Know the Butterflies) lists, "Atriplex bracteosa (lamb's tongue), Chenopodium (pigweed), Petunia parviflora." Petunia is in the Solanaceae, a most unusual group to be fed upon by a Lycaenid; one species, P. violacea Lindl., is recorded as toxic to various insect larvae (Shapiro 1968, Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 61: 1221). This paper presents information on host plants for B. exilis in lowland central California; plant names are from Munz & Keck (1970, A California Flora).