Hair-pencil

[1] Hair-pencil glands are stored inside the male until courtship begins, at which point they are forced out of the body by sclerotized levers present on the abdomen.

Their exact definition is confused by early descriptions but they are more specifically defined as the internal, glandular, eversible structures that bear the hair-pencils and can be voluntarily inflated with hemolymph or air.

[5] Fanning can occur in various ways including extruding and retracting the hair-pencils, wing or abdominal movement, or flight in front of the female.

[2] When the female moth becomes receptive to the male hair-penciling, she will flick her antennas rapidly in response to his pheromone cues.

These compounds can be formed by de novo synthesis or by modifying a pre-existing pyrrolizidine alkaloid that is consumed from the plant.

[7] Studies have also tested the effects of growth of the hair-pencil organs related to the ingestion of plant pyrrolizidine alkaloids.