Pachlioptera aristolochiae

The swallowtail butterfly Pachlioptera aristolochiae, feeding on the leaves of... 

Butterfly (Battus, archidamus, Pachlioptera aristolochiae) (derived from plant)... 

The larvae of the blue butterfly (Plebejus icaroides) feed only on lupines, rich in alkaloids. As far as we know, the larvae do not sequester or store the dietary alkaloids (506). Helopeltis feeds on Cinchona bark, which is rich in cinchonine-like alkaloids it stores and uses them for its own defense (506). Larvae of the butterflies Pachlioptera aristolochiae, Zerynthia po-tyxena, Ornithoptera priamus, and Battus philenor live on Aristolochia plants and were shown to take up and sequester aristolochic acid, a carcinogenic alkaloid discussed earlier, as an effective defense compound (4,28,236). 

Larvae of the butterfly, Pachlioptera aristolochiae, which feed exclusively on plants of the family Aristolochiaceae, accumulate aristolochic acid (46) (Levinson, 1976). Aristolochic acids have also been isolated from several lepidop-teran caterpillars and are transferred to the pupae. Imagos of the swallowtail butterflies, Battus polydamas and B. phi-lenor, contain aristolochic acid (Nahrstedt, 1982 Urzua et al., 1987), but do not appear able to adjust the levels of toxins, as do monarch butterflies (Harbome, 1986). 

The biosynthesis of A. involves oxidative degradation of aporphine precursors. They are taken up with food by caterpillars living on Aristolochia sp., stored, and later protect the butterfly (e.g., Pachlioptera aristo-lochiae) from potential enemies. 

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