Analysis of reproductive barrier traits between closely-related neotropical butterflies

Butterflies from the genus Heliconius are a well-studied case of Müllerian mimicry, which means that different species living under similar conditions mimic each other’s aposematic signals. However, some species also mimic each other’s flight behaviour, to produce an additional cue for the predator’s perception. Here, I investigated if the Müllerian mimicry occurs between the H. melpomene and H. elevatus individuals. H. pardalinus were used to check if there wasn’t a higher similarity between closely related species (H. elevatus in this case). The butterflies were filmed and their wing beat frequency was calculated based on the recordings obtained. The wing beat frequency values for the pair of mimics were more similar than between H. pardalinus and H. elevatus. In this mimicry pair, a wing motion mimicry was developed to offer one more signal to the predators. Since the birds rely mainly on their vision to catch the prey and have retinas with an up to three times higher flicker-fusion rates than in humans, the similarity in the wing beat frequency between mimics is used by the birds to differentiate them from the edible butterflies