Batesian Mimicry between Danaus chrysippus and Hypolimnas misippus (Lepidoptera) in Tanzania

Abstract

Danaus chrysippus (Danaidae) is a common butterfly of open country throughout tropical Africa1. The species is reputed to be distasteful and there is experimental evidence of this for a related American species, D. plexippus, in which the associated warning coloration has also been shown to be effective against predators2,3. D. chrysippus, which also shows warning coloration, is strikingly polymorphic over much of its range and four sympatric forms have been described from Uganda1. It acts as a model for several mimetic butterflies and is commonly involved in a supposed Batesian complex with Hypolimnas misippus (Nymphalidae) of which there are also four distinct female morphs4–6, each resembling closely a morph of D. chrysippus. (Male H. misippus are monomorphic, black and white and not mimetic.) There has been some doubt, however, about the efficiency of the mimicry as some morphs of H. misippus may be common in the absence of their D. chrysippus models. Also the abundance of the edible mimic is sometimes greatly in excess of that of the model6, which does not conform to what would normally be expected from Batesian mimicry theory6,7.