nickgray69
Comma, Lymington, Hampshire
The outer margins of the wings are strongly and irregularly dentate, excavated and angulated. The upper side of the wings has a bright orange ground colour, decorated with brown marks and light spots on the edge. The reverse is marbled with brown. Folded, the butterfly looks like a dead leaf. The hindwings have on the reverse side a white spot usually in the shape of C.
The sexual dimorphism is slight and concerns the intensity of the coloration, the silhouette and the size, the male having a wingspan of 22 to 24 mm. and the female of 25 to 26 mm. The seasonal dimorphism is more marked: the first generation ( hutchinsoni form, May-June) has the upperside fawn orange and the underside brown-gold and the hindwing bears distally a broad dark red-brown area in which is situated a row of light brown hastate spots, the underside is dark, being either unicolorous or prominently marmorated. , while the second generation (form c-album (July, in autumn and spring after overwintering) has a more reddish upper and dark brown underside (ground-colour is less bright). In the summer-form the wings are less dentate, and the hindwing has a narrow dark submarginal band, near which stands a row of light lunules proximally bordered by a band of brown arcs; the underside is of a paler colour, being less distinctly — sometimes, however, very prominently — marmorated and shaded.
Comma butterflies have a polyandrous mating system where females mate with multiple males to receive the necessary amount of sperm to fertilize their eggs. The polyandrous female distributes her matings equally over her lifetime, so males' mating success increases proportionally to their lifespan. The mating success of both sexes is correlated to the duration of an individual's life, so no difference in mortality rates is observed between males and females.
Unlike female host plant preference, egg mass is not shown to be sex-linked. Instead, egg mass is most likely controlled by additive autosomal genes, where the egg sizes of offspring are intermediate compared to its parents. The type of host plant chosen during the larval stage is not correlated with their offspring's egg mass, indicating that egg size is not related to fitness.
Comma, Lymington, Hampshire
The outer margins of the wings are strongly and irregularly dentate, excavated and angulated. The upper side of the wings has a bright orange ground colour, decorated with brown marks and light spots on the edge. The reverse is marbled with brown. Folded, the butterfly looks like a dead leaf. The hindwings have on the reverse side a white spot usually in the shape of C.
The sexual dimorphism is slight and concerns the intensity of the coloration, the silhouette and the size, the male having a wingspan of 22 to 24 mm. and the female of 25 to 26 mm. The seasonal dimorphism is more marked: the first generation ( hutchinsoni form, May-June) has the upperside fawn orange and the underside brown-gold and the hindwing bears distally a broad dark red-brown area in which is situated a row of light brown hastate spots, the underside is dark, being either unicolorous or prominently marmorated. , while the second generation (form c-album (July, in autumn and spring after overwintering) has a more reddish upper and dark brown underside (ground-colour is less bright). In the summer-form the wings are less dentate, and the hindwing has a narrow dark submarginal band, near which stands a row of light lunules proximally bordered by a band of brown arcs; the underside is of a paler colour, being less distinctly — sometimes, however, very prominently — marmorated and shaded.
Comma butterflies have a polyandrous mating system where females mate with multiple males to receive the necessary amount of sperm to fertilize their eggs. The polyandrous female distributes her matings equally over her lifetime, so males' mating success increases proportionally to their lifespan. The mating success of both sexes is correlated to the duration of an individual's life, so no difference in mortality rates is observed between males and females.
Unlike female host plant preference, egg mass is not shown to be sex-linked. Instead, egg mass is most likely controlled by additive autosomal genes, where the egg sizes of offspring are intermediate compared to its parents. The type of host plant chosen during the larval stage is not correlated with their offspring's egg mass, indicating that egg size is not related to fitness.