BEH 3812 Videos
Video 1. Successful sphragis removal in Clouded Apollo. (i) Loosening the sphragis. The male is holding the female in a face-to-face position with the legs. The valvae are holding and pressing on the shield and the abdomen is bent to exert a force for loosening the fastening of the sphragis in the vagina (0:16), while the aedeagus is thrusting to the female copulatory opening (0:37). (ii) Removing stopple with shield. The loosened sphragis may rotate around the stopple-neck and the valvae attempt to sever the stopple-neck to remove the stopple with the shield (1:11). (iii) Removing the remnants from the vagina. Once the stopple has gone, the male is still working around the female copulatory opening with presumably both valvae and aedeagus until the vagina is clear (1:29). (iv) Mating. If successful, the male positions himself in the standard mating position, the 'mating triangle' (1:44). Interestingly, at this moment the female starts feeding on Dianthus pontederae (Kern, 1882) (Caryophyllaceae), the most common nectar source for Clouded Apollos in this study site (Szigeti et al., 2020). She was probably found by the male when feeding that she could not continue during the removal process implying female costs of removal attempts. Overall, we observed this removal attempt for an hour. Three days prior to this observation another male had already tried to remove this sphragis, but abandoned the female after ca. 1 hour, and shield length shrunk ca. 1 mm compared to its first measurement. No CAP was produced during this mating. Note the stick on the video to which the shoot was clamped to dampen its movement in the breeze. Male Clouded Apollos do not seem to care for close observation when attempting to mate. The video was compiled from multiple recordings of the same event.
Video 2. Successful sphragis removal in Clouded Apollo. (i) Loosening the sphragis. The pair dropped to the ground, the male continues loosening the sphragis (0:27). (ii) Removing the stopple with the shield (0:49). The male holds the shield with the valvae and moves it away from the female by moving its abdomen (1:08). The female seems to struggle at this point, as if attempting to get rid of the male. (iii) Removing the remnants from the vagina (1:27). (iv) Formation of the mating triangle when the female carries the male (1:58). The sphragis removed (2:17). The video was compiled from multiple recordings of the same event.
Video 3. Failed sphragis removal in Clouded Apollo. (i) Loosening the sphragis. The female, seemingly unwilling, carries the male (1:18). Note that the shield is quite long. The video was compiled from multiple recordings of the same event.
Video 4. Failed stopple removal in Clouded Apollo. Male abandons female (0:45). The video was compiled from multiple recordings of the same event.
