Abstract
IN various insects, simple recessive mutants which have a distinctly different pteridine content from the wild type have long been recognized1. This phenomenon has been particularly well investigated for the eye-pteridines of the imago of Drosophila melanogaster. In all these cases, the presence or concentration of one or more of the 6-substituted pteridines and/or isoxanthopterin is affected. For Pieridae, a family in which pteridines occur in great variety and large quantities, no such mutants have been described. Sexual differences in pteridine content or composition can be very marked in some species of Pieridae, for example, in Euchloe cardamines. Also some geographical races of Pieris brassicae, for example, race cheiranthi (Hübner) of the Canary Islands, are, because of differences in pigmentation, suspected of having a different pteridine composition.
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References
Ziegler, I., Adv. Genetics, 10, 349 (1961).
Gardiner, B. O. C., J. Res. Lepid., 2, 127 (1963).
Gardiner, B. O. V., Entomol. Gaz., 13, 97 (1962).
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HARMSEN, R. Genetically Controlled Variation in Pteridine Content of Pieris brassicae L.. Nature 204, 1111 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1038/2041111a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2041111a0
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