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Biol Bull 142: 195-205. (April 1972)
© 1972 Marine Biological Laboratory
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PHOTIC SIGNALING IN THE FIREFLY PHOTINUS GREENI

JOHN BUCK 1 and ELISABETH BUCK 2

1 National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20014
2 Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543

1. In duplicating the courtship signals of Photinus greeni it was found possible to substitute flashes of artificial light for either the male or the female.

2. In confirmation of previous work, the courtship signals of P. greeni were found to depend on the female's recognition of the male's stimulus signal of two flashes and the male's recognition of the female's fixed response interval after his second flash. At 27° C the acceptance limits of the male's phrase were from about 1.1 to 1.7 seconds and the limits of the female's response latency were from about 0.8 to 1.1 seconds.

3. Within wide limits the delivery rate of the male's two-flash signal ("phrase"), and the intensities, durations and source areas of the flashes of male and female, are immaterial to the success of the signaling.

4. The two flashes of the male's stimulus phrase can be made multiple, or increased several-fold in duration, without preventing the female from responding, as long as the proper time relation between the starts of the first flash and one subsequent one is preserved. From this it is concluded that it is the rise in light intensity that is perceived by the female and that she is refractory to new visual input for several hundred milliseconds after being stimulated.

5. Instances in which males fell into step with torch flashes being used to stimulate females serially are interpreted as male-male communication.

6. It is concluded tentatively that the female times her response latency from the second flash of the male's stimulus phrase.

7. The behavioristic data for the Cape Cod P. greeni are consistent with its belonging to the same species as the Florida strain and with being distinct from P. consanguineus and P. macdermotti.




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