David Lohman is currently a PhD Student at Harvard University. He is interested in most topics related to ecology and evolutionary biology specially in the ecology and evolution of interactions between species. See his webpage.

 

Slow-moving, soft-bodied lepidopteran larvae are prototypical ant prey, yet immatures of nearly three-quarters of the nearly 6,000 species in the family Lycaenidae associate harmoniously with ants. Lycaenid-ant relationships are highly variable, but all depend on the suppression of ant aggression. Variation in the type and relative proportions of hydrocarbon molecules on the cuticle of ants ("cuticular hydrocarbons" or CHCs) is known to communicate colony identity to conspecifics, and CHC mimicry enables invading species to inhabit ant nests. Interspecific chemical communication via CHCs was investigated in the mutualistically myrmecophilous Australian genus Jalmenus, and in four carnivorous species in the subfamily Miletinae.

Larval CHC profiles of all Jalmenus species were compared with the profiles of their respective tending ant workers and brood. The profiles of Jalmenus immatures consisted almost entirely of unbranched alkanes; every compound on

the lycaenids was also found on the ants. The lycaenid profiles were often similar to those of the ant brood, but the data do not wholly support the hypothesis of chemical mimicry of ant brood. Rather, Jalmenus' CHCs seem to

constitute chemical camouflage. In contrast, a comparison of the CHC profiles of four miletine caterpillars with those of their associated ant and aphid species reveals chemical mimicry of aphid CHCs.