Abstract
Male adults of the two subspecies, Byasa alcinous alcinous and B. a. loochooana, exhibit strong musk-like odors which are slightly different from each other in the odor profile perceivable by the human nose. Using wild-caught males, the chemical compositions of these odors were investigated by means of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Among 11 compounds identified from the male odors, seven sesquiterpenes were approximately 3 to 10 times more abundant in B. a. alcinous than in B. a. loochooana, while 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one and linalool were detected only from B. a. loochooana. These qualitative and quantitative differences in particular components are considered to be responsible for the slight difference in male odors between the two subspecies.
