''Delias poecilea'' is a

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 ...

in the family

Pieridae The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America and Eurasia.DeVries P. J. in Levi ...

. It was described by Samuel Constantinus Snellen van Vollenhoven in 1865. It is found in the Australasian realm. 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 about 62–70 mm. It is one of the largest species of the genus ''

Delias ''Delias'' is a genus of butterflies. There are about 250 species of the genus ''Delias'', found in South Asia and Australia. The genus is considered to have its evolutionary origins in the Australian region.Braby, M.F. and N.E. Pierce. 2006. Sy ...

''. The female is quite dark and resembles the females of some of the ''isse'' and ''dorimene'' species groups.delias-butterflies
/ref>

Subspecies

*''D. p. poecilea'' (Halmahera, Bachan, Kasiruta, Mandioli) *''D. p. makikoae'' Yagishita, 1993 (Morotai)

References

External links

''Delias''
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms'' {{Taxonbar, from=Q13561507 poecilea Butterflies described in 1865 Taxa named by Samuel Constantinus Snellen van Vollenhoven