Evolutionary relationship of butterflies and their nectar flowers
G. Meerabai
Department of Botany, Rayalaseema University, Kurnool – 518002 (India) e-mail address: guddetimeerabai@gmail.com Mobile No. 9989325288
ABSTRACT
Plants have a great variety of evolutionary choices in the design of their floral displays. There is a good match between flowers and feeding structures of insects. The present study is aimed at observing the structural characters of flowers visited by 30 butterfly species and the correlation between corolla tube depths and proboscis length of these butterflies at Visakhapatnam located in Andhra Pradesh. The form of a flower, the structural arrangements of floral parts, the proboscis length and related corolla tube lengths and nectar quantities are measured. In present study, no butterfly species is found to restrict its visits to a single plant species and they are all polylectic. Even though different butterflies foraged on nectar in corollas of variable tube lengths, they mostly preferred specific ranges of corolla tubes which are most suitable to their proboscides. One-sided adaptation is observed in Cadaba fruticosa, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Clerodendron phlomidis and C.infortunatum. This kind of relation is one of the most significant events in the organic evolution.