The concepts of olfactory ‘arrestment’ and ‘attraction’

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The designation of pheromones and other odorous chemicals in terms of their unanalysed behavioural effects is a temporary convenience, but it perpetuates the use of portmanteau teleological terms and it focuses attention on chemical stimuli alone when in reality the observed reactions depend on central nervous integration of multiple inputs and outputs. Illustrative examples are given of ‘arrestment’ or the lack of it resulting from interaction between ortho‐ and klinokinetic reactions to odour; and of attraction resulting from interaction between non‐orienting odour cues and orienting cues from outside or inside the insect (‘allothetic’ or ‘idiothetic’, respectively). Longitudinal (as distinct from transverse) chemoklinotaxis, overlooked in a previous essay, is described; it does not appear to offer an alternative to odour‐modulated, optomotor anemotaxis as a mechanism for long‐distance guidance of flying insects to the source of a wind‐borne odour.