''Eresia lansdorfi'', the false erato or Lansdorf's crescent, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae.

Description

''Eresia lansdorfi'' has a wingspan of about . The upperside of the wings is black. The forewings have a yellowish basal stripe, while the postdiscal area is light red brown, including the costal bar. The hindwings have a pale yellow transverse band. This medium-sized species imitates (

Batesian mimicry Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on bu ...

) two local subspecies of ''

Heliconius erato ''Heliconius erato'', or the red postman, is one of about 40 neotropical species of butterfly belonging to the genus ''Heliconius''. It is also commonly known as the small postman, the red passion flower butterfly, or the crimson-patched longwing ...

'' (hence the common name) and ''

Heliconius melpomene ''Heliconius melpomene'', the postman butterfly, common postman or simply postman, is a brightly colored butterfly found throughout Central and South America. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae' ...

''. Larvae feed on ''

Ruellia brevifolia ''Ruellia brevifolia'', the tropical wild petunia or red Christmas pride, is an ornamental plant in the family Acanthaceae. It is native to South America, from Colombia to southern Brazil and northern Argentina Argentina (), officially t ...

''.Borboletas
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Distribution

This species can be found in Brazil, Northern Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru.

References

Melitaeini Butterflies described in 1819 Nymphalidae of South America Taxa named by Jean-Baptiste Godart {{Nymphalinae-stub