|
Heliconius
''Heliconius'' comprises a colorful and widespread genus of brush-footed butterflies commonly known as the longwings or heliconians. This genus is distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the New World, from South America as far north as the southern United States. The larvae of these butterflies eat passion flower vines (Passifloraceae). Adults exhibit bright wing color patterns which signal their distastefulness to potential predators. Brought to the forefront of scientific attention by Victorian naturalists, these butterflies exhibit a striking diversity and mimicry, both amongst themselves and with species in other groups of butterflies and moths. The study of ''Heliconius'' and other groups of mimetic butterflies allowed the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, following his return from Brazil in 1859, to lend support to Charles Darwin, who had found similar diversity amongst the Galápagos finches. Model for evolutionary study ''Heliconius' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliconius Numata
''Heliconius numata'', the Numata longwing, is a brush-footed butterfly species belonging to the family Nymphalidae, subfamily Heliconiinae. Distribution and habitat This species is native to most of South America, from Venezuela to southern Brazil (Guyana, French Guiana, Surinam, Guatemala, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru). ''H. numata'' is a neotropical species, less common in virgin forest than in areas of secondary growth. It occurs at an elevation of above sea level in tall forests. Subspecies Subspecies include: *''Heliconius numata numata'' (Surinam, French Guiana, Guyana) *''Heliconius numata silvana'' (Stoll, 1781) (Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Guatemala, Brazil: Pará, Amazonas) *''Heliconius numata ethra'' (Hübner, [1831]) (Brazil: Espírito Santo) *''Heliconius numata aristiona'' Hewitson, [1853] (Bolivia, Peru) *''Heliconius numata aurora'' Bates, 1862 (Brazil: Amazonas, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru) *''Heliconius numata euphone'' C. & R. Felder, 1862 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. ''H. erato'' exhibits Müllerian mimicry with other ''Heliconius'' butterflies such as '' Heliconius melpomene'' in order to warn common predators against attacking, which contributes to its surprising longevity. It also has a unique mating ritual involving the transfer of anti-aphrodisiacs from males to females. Recent field work has confirmed the relative abundance of this butterfly. Habitat and home range ''H. erato'' is a neotropical species, found from southern Texas to northern Argentina and Paraguay, and resides on the edges of tropical rainforests. It is philopatric, having a particularly restricted home range. In areas of dense population ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliconius Melpomene
''Heliconius melpomene'', the postman butterfly, common postman or simply postman, is a brightly colored, geographically variable butterfly species found throughout Central and South America. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. Its coloration coevolved with another member of the genus, '' H. erato'', as a warning to predators of its inedibility; this is an example of Müllerian mimicry. ''H. melpomene'' was one of the first butterfly species observed to forage for pollen, a behavior that is common in other insect groups but rare in butterflies. Because of the recent rapid evolutionary radiation of the genus ''Heliconius'' and overlapping of its habitat with other related species, ''H. melpomene'' has been the subject of extensive study on speciation and hybridization. These hybrids tend to have low fitness as they look different from the original species and no longer exhibit Müllerian mimicry. ''Heliconius& ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papilio Charithonia
''Heliconius charithonia'', the zebra longwing or zebra heliconian, is a species of butterfly belonging to the subfamily Heliconiinae of the family Nymphalidae. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1767 12th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. The boldly striped black and white wing pattern is aposematic, warning off predators. It is the state butterfly of Florida. The species is distributed across South and Central America and as far north as southern Texas and peninsular Florida; there are migrations north into other American states in the warmer months. Zebra longwing adults roost communally at night in groups of up to 60 adults for safety from predators. The adult butterflies are unusual in feeding on pollen as well as on nectar; the pollen enables them to synthesize cyanogenic glycosides that make their bodies toxic to potential predators. Caterpillars feed on various species of passionflower, evading the plants' defensive trichomes by biting them off or laying silk m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Müllerian Mimicry
Müllerian mimicry is a natural phenomenon in which two or more well-defended species, often foul-tasting and sharing common predators, have come to mimicry, mimic each other's honest signal, honest aposematism, warning signals, to their mutualism (biology), mutual benefit. The benefit to Müllerian mimics is that predators only need one unpleasant encounter with one member of a set of Müllerian mimics, and thereafter avoid all similar coloration, whether or not it belongs to the same species as the initial encounter. It is named after the German Brazilian, German Brazilian naturalist Fritz Müller, who first proposed the concept in 1878, supporting his theory with the first mathematical model of frequency-dependent selection, one of the first such models anywhere in biology. Müllerian mimicry was first identified in tropical butterfly, butterflies that shared colourful wing patterns, but it is found in many groups of insects such as bumblebees, and other animals such as Poiso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mimicry
In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. In the simplest case, as in Batesian mimicry, a mimic resembles a model, so as to deceive a dupe, all three being of different species. A Batesian mimic, such as a hoverfly, is harmless, while its model, such as a wasp, is harmful, and is avoided by the dupe, such as an insect-eating bird. Birds hunt by sight, so the mimicry in that case is visual, but in other cases mimicry may make use of any of the senses. Most types of mimicry, including Batesian, are deceptive, as the mimics are not harmful, but Müllerian mimicry, where different harmful species resemble each other, is Honest signal, honest, as when species of wasps and of bees all have genuinely Aposematism, aposematic warning coloration. More complex types may be bipolar, involving only two speci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passion Flower
''Passiflora'', known also as the passion flowers or passion vines, is a genus of about 550 species of flowering plants, the type genus of the family Passifloraceae. ''Passiflora'' species are widely cultivated for their striking flowers, flavorful fruits, traditional medicinal uses, and roles in dietary supplements and ayahuasca analogs, with several ornamental hybrids earning Royal Horticultural Society awards. Description They are mostly tendril-bearing vines, with some being shrubs or trees. They can be woody or herbaceous. Passion flowers produce regular and usually showy flowers with a distinctive corona. There can be as many as eight concentric coronal series, as in the case of '' P. xiikzodz''. and '' Passiflora alata''. The hallmark of the genus is the androgynophore, a central column to which the stamens and pistil are attached, which can be very long in some species such as '' Passiflora coactilis''. The flower is pentamerous (except for a few Southeast A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology (biology), morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, palaeontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. About 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a binomial nomenclature, two-part name, a "binomen". The first part of a binomen is the name of a genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name (zoology), specific name or the specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Walter Bates
Henry Walter Bates (8 February 1825 – 16 February 1892) was an English natural history, naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Tropical rainforest, rainforests of the Amazon basin, Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace, starting in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection on the return voyage when his ship caught fire. When Bates arrived home in 1859 after a full eleven years, he had sent back over 14,712 species (mostly of insects) of which 8,000 were (according to Bates, but see Van Wyhe) new to science. Bates wrote up his findings in his best-known work, ''The Naturalist on the River Amazons'' (1863). Life Bates was born in Leicester to a literate middle-class family. However, like Wallace, Thomas Henry Huxley and Herbert Spencer, he had a normal education to the age of about 13 when he became apprenticed to a hosiery manufacturer. He joined the Mechanics' Institute (w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalachtis
''Stalachtis'' is a genus of metalmark butterflies (family Riodinidae). It is currently the only member of the tribe Stalachtini, but many metalmark butterflies are yet to be unequivocally assigned to tribes, so this might change eventually. They are essentially limited to the Amazon biome and the surrounding regions. They are part of complex mimicry rings with ''Ithomeis'', ''Heliconius ''Heliconius'' comprises a colorful and widespread genus of brush-footed butterflies commonly known as the longwings or heliconians. This genus is distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the New World, from South America ...'' and Ithomiinae. Selected species * '' Stalachtis calliope'' * '' Stalachtis euterpe'' * '' Stalachtis halloweeni'' * '' Stalachtis magdalena'' * '' Stalachtis phaedusa'' * '' Stalachtis phlegia'' File:Stalachtis euterpe 1.jpg, '' Stalachtis euterpe'' File: Stalachtis phaedusa MHNT.jpg, '' Stalachtis phaedusa'' References External linksT ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papilio Zagreus
''Papilio zagreus'' is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae (swallowtails). It is found in South America, including Venezuela, Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ..., Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and western Brazil. Description A powerfully built insect with strong neuration in the forewing. The frons is either quite black or bears a yellow mesial line, never a yellow lateral streak along the eye. The antennae are long, yellow, with thin club; the frons has a yellow mesial stripe, the breast is diagonally streaked with yellow, the abdomen is for the most part yellow, the costal margin of the forewing is not dentate, the cell of the forewing is broad and the hindwing is rounded, without a tail. The spots of the forewing orange, the marginal ones yellow; hindwing ora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ithomeis
''Ithomeis'' is a genus in the butterfly family Riodinidae present only in the Neotropical realm. Species *''Ithomeis aurantiaca'' Bates, 1862 present in Guyana, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru *''Ithomeis eulema'' Hewitson, 1870 present in Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Colombia Biology Both species are Mimicry, mimics. The pattern of black, orange, and large translucent areas found in ''Ithomeis'' is shared by toxic genera from the Ithomiinae (examples are ''Ithomia'' and ''Oleria'') and a number of toxic Arctiidae. The pattern is also shared with several other Riodinidae genera (examples are ''Stalachtis'', ''Ithomiola'', and ''Brachyglenis''), which may be part of mimicry rings. ''I. aurantiaca'' has several subspecies; some are very different in appearance and were formerly regarded as full species. '' I. a. satellites'' and '' I. a. astrea'' closely resemble species of ''Heliconius''. Other subspecies include '' I. a. mimica'' and ''I a. stalachtina'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
