THE ROLE OF THE SENSILLAS OF THE FORETARSI ON THE VENTRALSURFACE OF THE PROTHORACIC LEGS OF THE PAPILLO BUTTERFLIES.

Inoue A. Takashi¹, Asaoka Kiyosi¹, Seta Kazuaki²and Niki Sawako^3
1National Institute of Sericulture and Entomological Science,305 Ibaraki-ken, Tsukuba-shi, Ohwashi 1-2, Japan.
²Biopark of Tokyo, Adachi-ku, 121 Tokyo-to, Adachi-ku, Hogima2-17-1, Japan.
³University of Tsukuba, 305 Ibaraki-ken, Tsukuba-shi, Tennoudai1-1-1, Japan.

The butterflies have chemosensory hairs on their tarsal forelegs, buttheir roles were not confirmed clearly. We carried out morphological observationby scanning electron microscope and neuroelectrophysiological experimentto make sure of this. This time, some kind of Rutaceae-feeding Papilloswallowtail butterflies were used. These hairs were classified intosome groups by their shapes. Moreover, the method of tip-recording weremade from one kind of these sensilla of some butterflies. Leaf extractsevoked big and large numbers of spikes. These results suggested that thesensillas of these butterflies might have the function to detect some kindof plant, like their host plant, also shown by Roessingh et al (1991) orIchinose et al (1975). The relationship of these responses and the componentsin the leaves are very interesting.