Hostplant utilization by African and Australian butterflies

A review of the larval hostplant associations of African and Australian butterflies highlights their overall conservatism in host choice—the most widely exploited families are cosmopolitan or pan- tropical in range. Thus there is no apparent relationship between butterfly diversity and endemic plant novelty at the family level. Such conservatism in hostplant preferences suggests that butterflies encounter few opportunities to make gross hostplant shifts, with the likelihood of the limited available options being repeatedly explored through time. Attempts to detect any simple parallel cladogenesis between butterflies and their larval hosts must allow for the probability of homoplasy. Similarities in the host ranges of the Papilionoidea, Hesperioidea and Hedyloidea might suggest that the Malvales constitute the ancestral host group of the butterflies.