About this book
This book explores the various functions of butterfly and moth wings. Lepidoptera wings are covered with variously coloured scales and exhibit a wide variety of colour patterns, with some functioning as significant signals in behaviour. They are also the flight organs, as the wings of the other insects are. Although research on Lepidopteran wings has predominantly focused on colour patterns and flight performance, they have many other functions that contribute to their lives.
Chapters in this book examine airflow regulation, behavioural signal sending, friction reduction, sensory signal reception, pheromone secretion, antireflection, and high hydrophobicity. Utilizing the perspectives from biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics, the author explores the functions, structures, construction, and development of these functional wings. Since many of the wing functions are attributed to or assisted by the scale functions, an understanding of the scale functions is necessary to understand the wing functions. The book includes chapters on the marginal scale morphology and function of the small moth wing, as well as the development of the wing with scales. Programmed cell death, which plays a crucial role in the development of the functional wing, is also described.
The extensive descriptions offer new insights into Lepidoptera wings and may inspire ingenious devices from a physics and engineering perspective. In particular, the physiological approach to the wing mechanoreception in this book is the first for butterfly and moth wings to thoroughly investigate their intricate mechanisms.
With numerous figures to aid the understanding of readers, the book will appeal to researchers and graduate students interested in entomology, biomimetics and physics.
Contents
Chapter 1.Introduction: Morphology and Development of the Wing with Scales
Chapter 2. Scale Arrangement in the Wing: Scale Rows around the Wing, High Scale Density near the Leading Edge, and a Double Layer of Scales
Chapter 3. Androconial Scales and the Sex Pheromone of the Pieris Male Wing: Secretory Cells in the Pupal Wing
Chapter 4. Androconial Scales and the Sex Pheromone of the Danaini Male Wing: Secretory Cells in the Adult
Chapter 5.Branched Filamentary Scales along the Wing Margin of the Small Moth: Coherent Scale Array in Flight and Compact Scale Bundle at Rest
Chapter 6.Sensory Bristles and Sensory Scales along the Wing Margin: Morphology, Modality, Arrangement, and Function.
Chapter 7.Highly Transparent Wing without Scales: A Nanosized Protuberance Array Overlaying the Wing Surface.
Chapter 8. Programmed Scale Detachment from the Wing: Formation of the Highly Transparent Wing.
Chapter 9. Concluding Remarks: Wing Structure Involved in Multiple Functions.
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Biography
Akihiro Yoshida is a visiting researcher at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan. He studied physical chemistry in his undergraduate at Kyoto University. He studied biology in his graduate at Kyushu University, and received PD in molecular mechanism of muscular contraction (1977). From 1979, he served as an assistant professor at Sophia University, where he focused on the development of lepidopteran wings until 1992. Following this, he worked as a senior researcher at JT Biohistory Research Hall, where he investigated various aspects of lepidopteran wings, including morphology, physiology, development, and evolution.
