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Tiger Beetle Defenses Revisited: Alternative Defense Strategies and Colorations of Two Neotropical Tiger Beetles, ODONTOCHEILA NICARAGUENSIS Bates and PSEUDOXYCHEILA TARSALIS Bates (Carabidae: Cicindelinae)

Abstract The alternative defensive strategies of two neotropical tiger beetles, Odontocheila nicaraguensis Bates and Pseudoxycheila tarsalis Bates, are described and compared. The defensive functions of their respective colorations were analyzed in the context of local ambient light and visual backgrounds using spectroradiometry. Odontocheila nicaraguensis exhibited a cryptic elytral coloration that closely matched the substrate of the forest understory. When disturbed, the beetles quickly flew and exposed an iridescent green abdomen that was highly conspicuous in the ambient light of forest gaps. Pseudoxycheila tarsalis exhibited a color pattern that was highly conspicuous against the exposed soil within large gaps of cloud forest, and matched the color pattern of mutillid wasps. When disturbed, P. tarsalis did not fly, but released a distasteful secretion; suggesting that the beetle was both aposematic and a Müllerian mimic of the mutillids. The behavioral observations and spectroradiometric analyses of color patterns presented here support alternative defensive roles for the elytral colorations of O. nicaraguensis (crypsis) and P. tarsalis (aposematism, mimicry) and demonstrate the plausibility of other secondary defenses involving color.