attacus atlas: eggs are male?

MaxjeX

Hi there,

I read somewhere that when a female attacus doesn't mate with a male, she will still lay eggs, but the outcome will always be male butterflies.
Is that correct? (sorry if this is really a stupid question)

I have now for 2 weeks 2 female attacus sitting still, not doing anything, they do not fly.
I was even worried whether they were still alive, But they are alive and laying lots of eggs.

By the way, do they fall down when they die or will the sticky paws prevent that?

Thankx
Margareth

moe

That is for sure not true. There is a phenomenon called parthenogenesis, which means that for example a female butterfly can reproduce without having mated. The offspring can only be female, because there are no male genes involved. But I don' think that Attacus atlas is capable of parthenogenesis.

Regards,
moe

sjusovare

I've indeed never encountered parthenogenesis with Attacus atlas, non fertilised eggs always seem to just be sterile with this species.

However, when parthenogenesis occures, it does not necessarily imply that there will be only female offspring, it depends on the sex-determination system of the species (not all species have an XY system).
One alternative system is XX/X0, in this case males can occure with parthenogenesis.
Another system is known as ZW and in this case it's the female which have different sets of chromosomes (WZ) while males have only (ZZ), and with this system, parthenogenesis can produce male offsprings as well. Add to this that it also depends on the type of parthenogenesis involved (more precisely at which level of the meiosis process parthenogenesis occures).. well complicated... Many lepidoptera species tend to be WZ rather than XY.

Hope I did not just made it more blurry, I just felt interresting to correct the common assumption that parthenogenesis = females only.

Regards,
Julien

moe

That's quite interesting, I did not know this. Thanks for explaining, Julien

MaxjeX

wow, interesting information!
I have googled parthenogenesis and attacus atlas and found different reactions. Most say that it is possible and that it will give male offspring.
But since you are experienced with this I will follow your answers.

Pity for all those eggs.

thank you Moe and Julien

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