Pheromone phenotypes

Pheromone Reception

Insects are analytical chemists par excellence. They perceive the world through semiochemicals with inordinate sensitivity.A male moth, for example, can detect a “scent of woman,” i.e., a female-produced sex pheromone, even when the signal-to-noise ratio is very low. In a sense the antennae are “signal translators.” The chemicals signals are “translated” into the language of the brain (nerve im...

Pheromone robotics

We describe techniques for coordinating the actions of large numbers of small-scale robots to achieve useful large-scale results in surveillance, reconnaissance, hazard detection, and path finding. We exploit the biologically inspired notion of a “virtual pheromone,” implemented using simple transceivers mounted atop each robot. Unlike the chemical markers used by insect colonies for communicat...

Pheromone discrimination by the pheromone-binding protein of Bombyx mori.

Pheromone-binding proteins are postulated to contribute to the exquisite specificity of the insect's olfactory system, acting as a filter by preferentially binding only one of the components of the natural pheromone. Here, we investigated the possible discrimination of the two very similar components of the natural pheromone gland from the silk moth, Bombyx mori, bombykol and bombykal, by the o...

Mosquitoes. Pheromone Group

Mosquitoes are vectors for a number of diseases, causing some of the world's most severe health problems. Anopheles species are vectors of malaria, Culex quinquefasciatus spreads filariasis, and Aedes aegypti is the main vector of Dengue fever. In female mosquitoes, olfactory cues are strongly involved in host-seeking behaviour. Male mosquitoes do hardly react to host-odours, but olfaction play...

Emission of maternal pheromone.