ArticleJournal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology2019
Compound eyes of the small white butterfly Pieris rapae have three distinct classes of red photoreceptors.
Article in Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cellular innovations and diversity in the lepidopteran compound eye.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- Remarkable red colour vision in two Mediterranean beetle pollinators.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Elucidating nanostructural organization and photonic properties of butterfly wing scales using hyperspectral microscopy.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Simple and complex, sexually dimorphic retinal mosaic of fritillary butterflies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Red-green opponency in the long visual fibre photoreceptors of brushfoot butterflies (Nymphalidae).Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The evolution of red color vision is linked to coordinated rhodopsin tuning in lycaenid butterflies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Polarization of foliar reflectance: novel host plant cue for insect herbivores.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The two subspecies of the small white butterfly, the European Pieris rapae rapae and the Asian P. r. crucivora, differ in wing colouration. Under ultraviolet light, the wings of both male and female P. r. rapae appear dark, whereas the wings of male P. r. crucivora are dark and those of females are bright. It has been hypothesized that these sexually dimorphic wing reflections in P. r. crucivora may have induced the evolution of a fluorescing-screening pigment in the violet-opsin-expressing photoreceptors of males, thus facilitating greater wavelength discrimination near 400 nm. Comparing the compound eyes of the two subspecies using genetic, microscopical, spectrographic, and histological methods revealed no differences that would meaningfully affect photoreceptor sensitivity, suggesting that the fluorescing-screening pigment did not evolve in response to sexually dimorphic wing reflections. Our investigation further revealed that (i) the peri-rhabdomal reddish-screening pigments differ among the three ommatidial types; (ii) each of the ommatidial types exhibits a unique class of red photoreceptor with a distinct spectral peak; and (iii) the blue, green, and red photoreceptors of P. rapae exhibit a polarization sensitivity > 2, with red photoreceptors allowing for a two-channel opponency form of polarization sensitivity.
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