RAPID COMMUNICATION Sequestration of Aristolochic Acid I from Aristolochia pilosa by Mapeta xanthomelas Walker, 1863 Juliana Durán & Giovanny Fagua & Jorge Robles & Elizabeth Gil Received: 7 June 2012 / Revised: 7 August 2012 / Accepted: 31 August 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract Sequestration of secondary plant chemicals and brightly colored bodies occur in a number of unpalatable insects. The utilization of toxic plant chemicals has been proposed as a strategy of chemical defense, while aposemat- ic coloration may advertise unpalatability. Here, we tested for the presence of aristolochic acid I in leaves of Aristolo- chia pilosa and female bodies of Mapeta xanthomelas, obtained from larvae feeding on the plant, using high per- formance liquid chromatography with photodiode array de- tection and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. The presence of aristolochic acid I in females of this conspicuous diurnal moth, an oligophagous herbivore of Aristolochia, is the first report of sequestration of aristolochic acids by an herbivore other than a species of Papilionidae. Keywords Pipevine . Aposematism . Chemical defense . HPLC . Herbivory . Mimicry . Snout moths . Aristolochiaceae . Lepidoptera . Pyralidae Introduction Oligophagous larvae of Troidini and Zerynthiini (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) are mostly exclusive feeders on pipevine plants (Piperales: Aristolochiaceae), because of their ability to tolerate the toxicity of aristolochic acids (AAs) (Nishida 2002). Aristolochic acids are secondary metabolites unique to Aristo- lochiaceae (Chen and Zhu 1987) that are sequestered by papil- ionid larvae and retained into adulthood (Sime et al. 2000). These compounds are utilized as protection for papilionids against predators by reducing palatability (Fordyce et al. 2005). This protection is “advertised” through warning colora- tion, and has led to papilionids as models in mimicry rings (Nishida 2002). Some species of Notodontidae (Miller 1992), Pyralidae, and Noctuidae are minor herbivores of Aristolochia; Fagua et al. (1995) reported Mapeta xanthomelas as an herbivore of Aris- tolochia odoratissima L., Aristolochia pilosa H.B.K., and Aris- tolochia acutifolia Duchartre in Colombia. Mapeta is a Neotropical genus of a highly diversified lepidopteran family, the Pyralidae. Pyralid species feed on plant species from nu- merous families (Solis 1997), but few species feed on species of Piperales. Given the bright coloration of the moth (Fig. 1a, b), we hypothesized that larvae may sequester secondary plant metabolites, which thus provide protection. In this study, we fed A. pilosa leaves to larvae of M. xanthomelas and confirmed the presence of 8-methoxy-6-nitrophenanthro[3,4-d][1,3]diox- ole-5-carboxylic acid (AA I) in adult females. Methods and Materials Plant and Insect Samples Aristolochia pilosa was collected in Restrepo and Fuente de Oro (Meta, Colombia). Eggs and larvae from M. xanthomelas were collected off basal leaves of A. pilosa and reared on fresh leaves of A. pilosa under laboratory conditions. Extraction and Fractionation Leaves of A. pilosa were dried (45 g dry weight), pulverized, and lipids removed by hexane extraction. The residue was macerated with metha- nol and evaporated to dryness in a rotatory evaporator at 40 °C. A liquid/liquid fractionation was performed with J. Durán : G. Fagua (*) Grupo de Sistemática Molecular, Departamento de Biología, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 43-82, Bogotá, Colombia e-mail: fagua@javeriana.edu.co J. Robles : E. Gil Grupo de Investigación Fitoquímica, GIFUJ, Departamento de Química, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 43-82, Bogotá, Colombia J Chem Ecol DOI 10.1007/s10886-012-0187-6