''Urania fulgens'', the urania swallowtail moth or green page moth, is a day-flying

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the family

Uraniidae The Uraniidae are a family of moths containing four subfamilies, 90 genera, and roughly 700 species. The family is distributed throughout the tropics of the Americas, Africa and Indo-Australia.Carter, David, ''Eyewitness Handbook to Butterflies ...

. The species was first described by Francis Walker in 1854. It is found from

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, through

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

to northwestern South America (west of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

and south to

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...

).Smith, N.G. (1972)
"Migrations of the day-flying moth ''Urania'' in Central and South America"
''Caribbean Journal of Science''. 12: 45-58Quinn, M. (2011)

''Texas Lep Information''. Retrieved 12 October 2011. It is highly migratory and has been recorded as a vagrant to the US state of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. It is sometimes confused with the similar '' U. leilus'', but that species is found east of the Andes in South America, is slightly larger, and has more white to the "tail". The two have been treated as

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

. As appears to be the case for all ''Urania'', the larvae of ''U. fulgens'' feed exclusively on the toxic ''

Omphalea ''Omphalea'' is a plant genus of the family Euphorbiaceae first described as a genus in 1759. It is native to tropical parts of the Americas, the West Indies, Asia, Australia, and Africa (including Madagascar). ''Omphalea'' has monoecious, apet ...

'' species.Lees, D.C. & Smith, N.G. (1991)
"Foodplant Associations of the Uraniinae (Uraniidae) and their Systematic, Evolutionary, and Ecological Significance"
''Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society''. 45(4): 296-347.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3539681 Uraniidae Moths described in 1854