The first known riodinid ‘cuckoo’ butterfly reveals deep-time convergence and parallelism in ant social parasites

Author(s):  
Lucas A Kaminski ◽  
Luis Volkmann ◽  
Curtis J Callaghan ◽  
Philip J DeVries ◽  
Roger Vila

Abstract Mutualistic interactions between butterflies and ants can evolve into complex social parasitism. ‘Cuckoo’ caterpillars, known only in the Lycaenidae, use multimodal mimetic traits to achieve social integration into ant societies. Here, we present the first known ‘cuckoo’ butterfly in the family Riodinidae. Aricoris arenarum remained in taxonomic limbo for > 80 years, relegated to nomen dubium and misidentified as Aricoris gauchoana. We located lost type material, designated lectotypes and documented the morphology and natural history of the immature stages. The multifaceted life cycle of A. arenarum can be summarized in three phases: (1) females lay eggs close to honeydew-producing hemipterans tended by specific Camponotus ants; (2) free-living caterpillars feed on liquids (honeydew and ant regurgitations); and (3) from the third instar onward, the caterpillars are fed and tended by ants as ‘cuckoos’ inside the ant nest. This life cycle is remarkably similar to that of the Asian lycaenid Niphanda fusca, despite divergence 90 Mya. Comparable eco-evolutionary pathways resulted in a suite of ecomorphological homoplasies through the ontogeny. This study shows that convergent interactions can be more important than phylogenetic proximity in shaping functional traits of social parasites.

Author(s):  
Vadim Markovich Rozin

This article offers a nontraditional approach towards studying the poetics of literary work, which considers personality of the reader and analysis of the reality that he reconstructs and experiences. The empirical material is comprised on the authorial analysis of the poetics of Meir Shalev's novel “Fontanelle”. This literary work features the four major themes: love of the protagonist Michael, creation of the new world from its inception, the characteristic of life values of a person, and discussion of the peculiarities of reality that Meir Shalev builds as an artist. In the first theme, the author reveals several images of love, reflecting on the mystical love of the protagonist for the young woman Ana, love in the family and marriage, love for children. At the same time, the author discusses not only the way that Meir Shalev understands and describes love in “Fontanelle”, but also talks about the own interpretation of love. In the plotline of the second theme, the author also distinguishes two lines: the story the protagonist’s grandfather Apupa, who carries his beloved Amuma on his shoulders across the country, seeking a place where they could create a home and family; and the story of gradual development of a small settlement into a city, created by Apupa and Amuma on the mountain, and several Jewish families at the lower valley. Discussing in the third topic the anchors of human life, the author emphasizes such values as effort, love, family and family line, creativity, indicating that Michael is not alone, he is loved, he gets involved in family history, as well as the history of Israel and Jewish culture, drawing strength in the heroes of this story. The last part of the article gives characteristic to the reality of “Fontanelle” and explains why the author liked it.


2012 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Benzoni ◽  
Roberto Arrigoni ◽  
Fabrizio Stefani ◽  
Bastian T. Reijnen ◽  
Simone Montano ◽  
...  

The scleractinian species Psammocora explanulata and Coscinaraea wellsi were originally classified in the family Siderastreidae, but in a recent morpho-molecular study it appeared that they are more closely related to each other and to the Fungiidae than to any siderastreid taxon. A subsequent morpho-molecular study of the Fungiidae provided new insights regarding the phylogenetic relationships within that family. In the present study existing molecular data sets of both families were analyzed jointly with those of new specimens and sequences of P. explanulata and C. wellsi. The results indicate that both species actually belong to the Cycloseris clade within the family Fungiidae. A reappraisal of their morphologic characters based on museum specimens and recently collected material substantiate the molecular results. Consequently, they are renamed Cycloseris explanulata and C. wellsi. They are polystomatous and encrusting like C. mokai, another species recently added to the genus, whereas all Cycloseris species were initially thought to be monostomatous and free-living. In the light of the new findings, the taxonomy and distribution data of C. explanulata and C. wellsi have been updated and revised. Finally, the ecological implications of the evolutionary history of the three encrusting polystomatous Cycloseris species and their free-living monostomatous congeners are discussed.


2005 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.A. Shears ◽  
C.R. Kennedy

AbstractPrevious studies on the life history of the nematode eel specialist Paraquimperia tenerrima (Nematoda: Quimperiidae) have failed to determine whether an intermediate host is required in the life cycle. In the laboratory, eggs failed to hatch below 10°C, hatching occurring only at temperatures between 11 and 30°C. Survival of the free-living second stage larvae (L2) was also temperature dependent, with maximal survival between 10 and 20°C. Total survival of the free-living stages (eggs and L2) is unlikely to exceed a month at normal summer water temperatures, confirming that parasite could not survive the 6 month gap between shedding of eggs in spring and infection of eels in early winter outside of a host. Eels could not be infected directly with L2, nor could a range of common freshwater invertebrate species. Third stage larvae (L3) resembling P. tenerrima were found frequently and abundantly in the swimbladder of minnows Phoxinus phoxinus from several localities throughout the year and were able to survive in this host in the laboratory for at least 6 months. Third stage larvae identical to these larvae were recovered from minnows experimentally fed L2 of P. tenerrima, and eels infected experimentally with naturally and experimentally infected minnows were found to harbour fourth stage larvae (L4) and juvenile P. tenerrima in their intestines. Finally, the whole life cycle from eggs to adult was completed in the laboratory, confirming that minnows are an obligate intermediate host for P. tenerrima.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josimar Antônio de Alcântara Mendes ◽  
Julia Sursis Nobre Ferro Bucher-Maluschke

ABSTRACT Some difficulties may arise during the divorce process, taking the family into “destructive divorce”. In such cases, some authors can see the rising of Parental Alienation (PA). This article aims to criticize PA, reflecting about the Family Life Cycle and divorce. Regarding this, a qualitative study was conducted with legal actors (judges, prosecutors, psychologists, social workers, lawyers) on the issues of divorce and PA and the results were built using the conceptions of Zones of Sense by Gonzalez Rey. The summary results are: (a) PA does not contextualize the conflict; (b) it does not consider the history of the relationships; (c) it pathologizes, medicates and criminalizes the phenomena of post-divorce and (d) PA underestimates the child in the conflict.


Author(s):  
Rosemary L. Hopcroft

This chapter provides an overview of The Oxford Handbook of Evolution, Biology, and Society. Chapters in the first part of this book address the history of the use of method and theory from biology in the social sciences; the second part includes chapters on evolutionary approaches to social psychology; the third part includes chapters describing research on the interaction of genes (and other biochemicals such as hormones) and environmental contexts on a variety of outcomes of sociological interest; and the fourth part includes chapters that apply evolutionary theory to areas of traditional concern to sociologists—including the family, fertility, sex and gender, religion, crime, and race and ethnic relations. The last part of the book presents two chapters on cultural evolution.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Karl Jansen-Winkeln

In this short Beiträge three points relevant to the history of the Third Intermediate Period are presented. 1. The genealogical data of the family of the army scribe Nespaqashuty written on a fragmentary block statue from Karnak have hitherto been misunderstood. The owner of the statue is not Nespaqashuty ii, who lived in the time of Siamun, but a grandson of Amenemone i. The statue may have been dedicated by his son Ankhefenkhons during the time of Osorkon ii. 2. According to stela Cairo je 66285, the Libyan chief and later king Shoshenq i had a statue of his father Nimlot A erected in the temple of Abydos. The offering established for this statue is written with a hieroglyph simply to be read ḥtp “offering,” not ẖntj “statue” or qnyt “portable image” as proposed before. 3. Some aspects of the chronological and political relations between Bocchoris and Shabako and their predecessors Tefnakhte and Piankhy are considered as well as the supposed reason for the attack on Bocchoris by “Sabakôn.”


Parasitology ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. L. James

1. Parvatrema homoeotecnum sp.nov. from the oystercatcher, Haematopus ostralegus occidentalis Neumann at Aberystwyth is described and compared with other species of the genus.2. The life cycle of this species is unique. The larval stages occur in the gastropod, Littorina saxatilis (Olivi) subsp. tenebrosa (Montagu) and include germinal sacs which have a structure and development similar to an adult digenean. There are no free-living stages and only one intermediate host.3. The significance of this unique life cycle is discussed.4. The family Gymnophallidae Morozov, 1955, is reviewed. Emended definitions are given for the family, subfamilies and genera. Keys, diagnostic features and brief notes of the species are included.I am very grateful to Dr Gwendolen Rees, who suggested the investigation which led to the discovery of this species, for her advice and indispensable assistance throughout the work and the preparation of this paper. I am also grateful to the late Professor T. A. Stephenson for his interest and for the provision of working facilities; to Mr W. A. Ballantine, Mr A. H. Clarke, Jr., Mr C. Curtis, Miss G. P. F. Evans, Dr V. Fretter, Professor L. A. Harvey, Mr D. H. Jones and Dr J. Lewis who sent me specimens of Littorina saxatilis; to Professor R. M. Cable and Emerit. Professor G. R. La Rue for helpful suggestions; to Mr J. R. Hirst and Mr D. Hemingway Jones for photographic and technical assistance and to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research for a grant which made the work possible.


1880 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-378
Author(s):  
Arminius Vambéry

I Have to remark before all, that the manuscript referring to Sheibani Khan, upon which I am speaking, ought not to be confounded with the Sheibani-nameh, edited by the Russian Orientalist K. Berezin, in 1849, in I. Biblioteka Vostochnikh Historikof. The last-named is an insignificant little treatise of the deeds accomplished by the famous Uzbeg chief, and may be divided into two different parts. The first, containing one of those numerous compilations of the history of the Turks, must be ranked amongst the third class of imitators of Ala-eddin Djuveini and of Rashid-eddin Tabibi, with the only exception that the anonymous author, being probably of Turkish origin, has less disfigured the Turkish and Mongol nomina propria than many of his predecessors and subsequent writers upon the same subject. In the second part the author dwells at some length upon that branch of the Djenghizides of which Abulkhair Khan, the ancestor of Sheibani, was an offspring—I mean to say upon the family of Djudji Khan, and here we meet with certain details and genealogical data not to be met with in most of the books treating the same subject.


2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 189-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Audebert ◽  
H. Hoste ◽  
M.C. Durette-Desset

AbstractThe chronology of the life cycle ofTrichostrongylus retortaeformis(Zeder, 1800) (Nematoda, Trichostrongyloidea) is studied in its natural hostOryctolagus cuniculus. The free living period lasted 5 days at 24°C. Worm-free rabbits were each infectedper oswithT. retortaeformislarvae. Rabbits were killed at 12 h post-infection (p.i.) and every day from one day to 13 days p.i. By 12 h p.i., all the larvae were exsheathed and in the small intestine. The third moult occurred between 3 and 5 days p.i. and the last moult between 4 and 7 days p.i. The prepatent period lasted 12 to 13 days. The patent period lasted five and a half months. The four known life cycles of species ofTrichostrongylusin ruminants were compared with that ofT. retortaeformis. No significant difference was found except in the duration of the prepatent period. These similarities in the life cycles confirm the previously formulated hypotheses on the relationship between the parasites of the two host groups ().


2018 ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Jérémie Fischer

The article is an attempt to show the leading elements of the attitude towards Jews, the attitude of Father Claude-Antoine Pochard (1766-1833), tutor in the family of a Gniezno governor Joseph Skórzewski. Numerous trips across Polish territories and neighboring countries enabled him to come into direct contact with Jewish issues in Central and Eastern Europe, and his up till now unpublished memoirs shed light on some interesting aspects of the history of European  Jews.The article consists of three parts. The first part presents direct or indirect contacts of Father Pochard with Jews during his trip to Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, Wielkopolska, the land annexed by Russia and Lithuania. The second part shows Fr. Pochard’s reactions to the presence of Jews – dislike and avoiding closer contacts. There is also an attempt to show the difference in the positions of both the Catholic side, represented by Fr. Pochard, and the Jewish side, the climate of hostility and mutual prejudices. The third and last part shows cases where Fr. Pochard revises his views in contact with professionalism and honesty encountered in traveling Jewish innkeepers and merchants, and also other specific moments when there was escalation of tension in his relations with the Jews. The whole article is an interesting panorama of Christian-Jewish relations in the  first half of the nineteenth century, when there were economic contacts but no cultural exchange.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document