Objective To analyze the recognition and selection rules of Papilio polytes' visual and olfactory response during foraging and courtship, and to further discuss their ecological significance.

Method Through color-visit, odor-visit, color plus odor-visit, courtship and artificial models-visit experiments in natural population butterflies to analyze the visual and olfactory weight factor of P. polytes in foraging and courtship.

Result Under the condition of odorless 7-color artificial flowers, the P. polytes showed obvious color tendency to red, blue, and purple. After spraying honey on the artificial flowers, the frequency of female and male butterfly foraging increased by 3.16 times. In the colorless floral volatiles foraging experiment (β-caryophyllene, benzaldehyde), the frequency of butterfly foraging was less; after add odor to color, the frequency of female and male butterfly foraging increased by 60 to 120 times, indicating that the attractant effect of color exceeds odor. However, compared with the single color and floral volatiles, the increase ratio was only 1%~5%, indicating that the effect of scent on the collection of P. polytes was small. In the process of courtship, the visit to the plastic seal model was similar to that of the natural population in the type and proportion of courtship, indicating that the butterfly could use color and stripes to identify male and female.

Conclusion P. polytes is mainly visual and supplemented by olfaction when foraging and courtship.