http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius Home of the passion vine butterflies Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:35:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The second meeting of the Heliconius Genome Consortium will be held on 25-26th March 2010 in St Johns College Cambridge. Accommodation will be available at around £43 per night from Weds 24th until Friday inclusive.  The meeting will be held either in St Johns or in the Zoology Department - not ... http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/second-hgc-meeting/ Heliconius hecale melicerta, from Gamboa area, Panama http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/heliconius-hecale-melicerta/ Heliconius erato petiverana roosting gregariously in the insectary in Gamboa http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/roosting-erato/ Heliconius erato petiverana roosting gregariously. http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/gregarious-roost/ A Heliconius erato petiverana female roosting, hanging from the wings of another.  Note the characteristic roosting posture of females (both individuals here are female), with their hindwings covering the forewing band. http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/hanging-from-one-another/ Heliconius erato petiverana roosing gregariously in the insectary in Gamboa.  Individuals coming in to roost spend several minutes 'fanning' the butterflies already hanging up, often dislodging them from the perch.  The reason for this social behaviour is not really well understood. http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/roosting-erato-2/ We now have 11x coverage of the H. melpomene genome, all in 454 shotgun sequence reads.  A preliminary assembly gives average contig size of 2662bp, and N50 ContigSize of 8207bp.  So a bit of a way to go until we have a full assembly, but good progress.  If anyone out ... http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/genome-data-now-up-to-11x/ Normally, a natural background is nice, but artificial feeders are quite colourful.... Heliconius erato erato http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/artificial-feeders/ Heliconius erato petiverana laying an egg on P. biflora. http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/laying-on-biflora/ Another photo of this persistent H. ismenius male.  The female is raising her abdomen up, which is probably a rejection behaviour - at least it certainly prevents the male from getting to her abdomen from the side, and also probably releases pheromones from scent glands in the female's abdomen (which ... http://heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/heliconius/2009/heliconius-ismenius-courting-2/