''Caligo telamonius memnon'', commonly known as the giant owl or pale owl, is a subspecies of

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

of the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species have a red ...

. This subspecies can be found in rainforests and secondary forests from Mexico to the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...

in South America.''Caligo telamonius''
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms'' The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is usually from 115 to 130 mm, but can reach 150 mm. The larvae feed on ''

Musa Musa may refer to: Places *Mūša, a river in Lithuania and Latvia * Musa, Azerbaijan, a village in Yardymli Rayon * Musa, Iran, a village in Ilam Province *Musa, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Iran *Musa, Kerman, Iran * Musa, Bukan, West Azerbaijan ...

'' and ''

Heliconia ''Heliconia'', derived from the Greek word (), is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the ca 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the we ...

'' species and can be a pest for banana cultivation. Adults feed on juices of rotting fruit.

Gallery

Caligo memnon larva 003.JPG, Larva Caligo memnon.jpg, A pair at La Paz Waterfall Gardens,

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

References

Caligo Taxa named by Baron Cajetan von Felder Taxa named by Rudolf Felder Butterflies described in 1867 {{Morphinae-stub