Eyes with basic dorsal and specific ventral regions in the glacial Apollo, Parnassius glacialis (Papilionidae)

Abstract

Recent studies on butterflies have indicated that their colour vision system is almost species specific. To address the question of how this remarkable diversity evolved, we investigated the eyes of the glacial Apollo, Parnassius glacialis, a living fossil species belonging to the family Papilionidae. We identified four opsins in the Parnassius eyes--an ultraviolet- (PgUV), a blue- (PgB), and two long wavelength (PgL2, PgL3)-absorbing types--and localized their mRNAs within the retina. We thus found ommatidial heterogeneity and a clear dorso-ventral regionalization of the eye. The dorsal region consists of three basic types of ommatidia that are similar to those found in other insects, indicating that this dorsal region retains the ancestral state. In the ventral region, we identified two novel phenomena: co-expression of the opsins of the UV- and B-absorbing type in a subset of photoreceptors, and subfunctionalization of long-wavelength receptors in the distal tier as a result of differential expression of the PgL2 and PgL3 mRNAs. Interestingly, butterflies from the closely related genus Papilio (Papilionidae) have at least three long-wavelength opsins, L1-L3. The present study indicates that the duplication of L2 and L3 occurred before the Papilio lineage diverged from the rest, whereas L1 was produced from L3 in the Papilio lineage.