''Mimoides protodamas'' is a species 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 ...

in the family

Papilionidae Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species. Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The family includes the larges ...

. The common name is false polysticto, with reference to the similarity of this species with ''

Battus polystictus ''Battus polystictus'' is a species of butterfly from the Family (biology), family Papilionidae that is found in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. Male and female are less sexual dimorphism, dimorphic than in related species as regards wi ...

''.

Description

''Mimoides protodamas'' has a wingspan reaching . It is a black butterfly with rounded apex and concave outer edge of the forewings, while the outer edge of the hindwings is scalloped. The dorsal sides of the wings shows a series of whitish-bluish markings.

Description from Seitz

P. protodamas Godt. (= ''hyperion'' Hbn). Forewing with yellowish area consisting of 3 large patches, or with 1 or 2 rows of spots; hindwing with yellowish grey-blue band; forewing beneath without basal spots, hindwing with 3. The scent-organ of the male wanting. Larva black, with grey and white, partly yellow stripes, the thorax dotted with white and yellow. Thoracic horn of the pupa rather thin. Two individual forms of the butterfly are known: in f. ''protodamas'' Godt. the forewing has two rows of spots, the upper ones of which are more or less merged; in f ''choridamas'' Boisd. (13b) the forewing has a very large cell-spot and two discal patches, also large. — The butterfly is entirely Brazilian; it is found from Minas Geraes to Rio Grande do Sul; but the f. choridamas does not appear to extend so far south, being only known to us from the provinces of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Geraes.Seitz, A. ed. Band 1: Abt. 1, ''Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen Tagfalter'', 1909, 379 Seiten, mit 89 kolorierten Tafeln (3470 Figuren)

Distribution

This species can be found in the

Neotropical realm The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

, in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

Gallery

File:Hubner1821SammlExotSchmett2Plate114.jpg, Illustration from

Jacob Hübner Jacob Hübner (20 June 1761 – 13 September 1826, in Augsburg) was a German entomologist. He was the author of ''Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge'' (1796–1805), a founding work of entomology. Scientific career Hübner was the author of '' ...

's ''Sammlung exotischer Schmetterlinge'' Vol. 2 (1821) File:Hubner1821SammlExotSchmett2Plate115.jpg, Illustration from Jacob Hübner's ''Sammlung exotischer Schmetterlinge'' Vol. 2 (1821) File:Museo de La Plata - Insectario V.JPG, ''Mimoides protodamas '' on display at the

Museo de La Plata The La Plata Museum ( es, Museo de la Plata) is a natural history museum in La Plata, Argentina. It is part of the (Natural Sciences School) of the UNLP (National University of La Plata). The building, long, today houses 3 million fossils an ...

File:Macrolepidoptera15seit 0035.jpg, Seitz Plate 13

References

* *Boisduval, . B. A.(1836) Histoire Naturelle des Insectes. Species Général des Lépidoptères. Tome Premier., Boisduval, . B. A.(1836) Histoire Naturelle des Insectes. Species Général des Lépidoptères. Tome Premier. xii, 690, 6 pp.; 24 pls., Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Paris *Bisby F.A., Roskov Y.R., Orrell T.M., Nicolson D., Paglinawan L.E., Bailly N., Kirk P.M., Bourgoin T., Baillargeon G., Ouvrard D. (red.) (2011)
Catalogue of Life
*GloBIS (GART): Global Butterfly Information System. Häuser C., Holstein J. & Steiner A. (eds), 2008-11-23

External links

* * *
Globis Images
{{Taxonbar, from=Q6862297 Butterflies described in 1819 protodamas Papilionidae of South America Taxa named by Jean-Baptiste Godart