ARKHANGELSK, April 11. /TASS/. Scientists of the Research Center for Integrated Arctic Studies (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Urals Branch, Arkhangelsk) explained the most probable reason why super rare is Menetries' tiger moth (Arctia menetriesii), found in the area from the Sakhalin and China to Finland. The center's Director Ivan Bolotov told TASS that at a certain stage of development, the butterfly may feed on the aconite plant that contains alkaloids, acting on it like a drug.
"For the first time, we have summarized all the data on this species and we have proposed a scheme that gives us estimated reasons why this butterfly is of very low abundance. Apparently, in nature, during part of its life cycle, it may eat aconite leaves, which contain alkaloids. At times, let's say it gets addicted and cannot give up this poisonous aconite to eat other plants, and this leads to extremely high mortality and development disorders. Noteworthy, we have seen development disorders not only in the experiment, but also in nature - we have found butterflies with anomalies: shortened wings and so on. Thus, this is a butterfly that, in order to survive and develop normally, must eat alkaloids, but it is unable to take correct doses of that natural drug," the scientist said.
Menetries' tiger moth is a large and bright yellow-orange butterfly with black stripes. Russian entomologist Eduard Eversman first described it in 1846 as he found a single butterfly in the mountains of northeastern Kazakhstan. The butterfly was named after Eduard Menetries, a founder of Russian entomology. The second encounter with this butterfly was in Finland in 1913. Since then, Menetries' tiger moths have been seen about 80 times, though it lives in the vast territory of Northern Eurasia: from Finland to the Sakhalin and China.
Experiment and mutations
In experiments, scientists found that caterpillars eat offered aconite and consequently either the entire population dies or appear butterflies with developmental abnormalities. "We have seen a high mortality in caterpillars. Those who start eating aconite early, die almost all. Those who start eating it later - die less often. Butterflies may develop, but their wings are underdeveloped, or they even may develop into monsters - half caterpillar, half butterfly," the expert told TASS.
The butterfly still needs alkaloids from aconite to synthesize pheromones. Besides, that plant contains antifungal substances, without which caterpillars may die of infection during wintering, thus Menetries' tiger moth cannot to do without feeding on aconite. "We can see the importance, on one hand, of feeding a poisonous plant, and, on the other hand, there are certain consequences. It may be at a certain stage of adapting to this aconite, which explains why we observe such disruptions and an ultra-low abundance," he concluded.
According to the scientist, the problem of such super rare species is that it is very difficult to plan a program for their research. It could be possible to understand why, being so rare, this butterfly has such a huge habitat, if we have genetic data, but this study requires fresh material. A group of Russian and Finnish specialists has been studying Menetries' tiger moth for 30 years, he said, and over that time they were lucky to find just 12 butterflies. The species lives mostly in sparsely populated forests in valleys of small rivers.