Central Control of Interactions between Behaviour Patterns in a Hemileucine Moth

Abstract

PREVIOUS publications have described the relation between precurrent flight performance and the strength of a subsequent rhythmic settling response (‘rocking’) in the neotropical saturniid moth Automeris aurantiaca Weymer (Hemileucinæ¹)². The strength of the rocking response, measured as the number of complete oscillations of the rhythm, increases linearly with duration of flight, and in the absence of further flight responses is stable to retesting for periods of at least 90 min. The mechanism by which flight performance is thus registered and expressed in the subsequent settling behaviour is of particular interest, for the relationship is similar to that between the flight activity of foraging honey-bees, and the rhythmic distance-specific components of the communication dance²