title: Innate preference and learning of colour in the male cotton bollworm moth, Helicoverpa armigera.
abstract: We investigated colour discrimination and learning in adult males of the nocturnal cotton bollworm moth, Helicoverpa armigera, under a dim light condition. The naive moths preferred blue and discriminated the innately preferred blue from several shades of grey, indicating that the moths have colour vision. After being trained for 2 days to take nectar at a yellow disc, an innately non-preferred colour, moths learned to select yellow over blue. The choice distribution between yellow and blue changed significantly from that of naive moths. However, the dual-choice distribution of the trained moths was not significantly biased to yellow: the preference for blue is robust. We also tried to train moths to grey, which was not successful. The limited ability to learn colours suggests that H armigera may not strongly rely on colours when searching for flowers in the field, although they have the basic property of colour vision.
authors: Laboratory of Neuroethology, Sokendai (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, Kanagawa 240-0193, Japan.
authors: Aya
authors: A
authors: Satoh
authors: Laboratory of Neuroethology, Sokendai (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, Kanagawa 240-0193, Japan.
authors: Michiyo
authors: M
authors: Kinoshita
authors: Laboratory of Neuroethology, Sokendai (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, Kanagawa 240-0193, Japan arikawa@soken.ac.jp.
authors: Kentaro
authors: 0000-0002-4365-0762
authors: K
authors: Arikawa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003116:Color; D055253:Color Vision / Q000502:physiology; D003368:Gossypium / Q000469:parasitology*; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009036:Moths / Q000502:physiology*; D013057:Spectrum Analysis
keywords: Behaviour; Colour vision; Nocturnal moth