''Consul'', described by

Pieter Cramer Pieter Cramer (21 May 1721 (baptized) – 28 September 1776) was a wealthy Netherlands, Dutch merchant in linen and Spanish wool, remembered as an entomologist. Cramer was the director of the Zealand Society, a scientific society located in Flushin ...

in 1776, is a South American

nymphalid The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species have ...

butterfly

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

in the subfamily

Charaxinae __NOTOC__ The Charaxinae, the leafwings, are a nymphalid subfamily of butterflies that includes about 400 species, inhabiting mainly the tropics, although some species extend into temperate regions in North America, Europe, China, and southern ...

Species

There are four species in the genus. All are

Neotropical 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 biogeogra ...

.Glassberg, Jeffrey. (2007) A Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America. Sunstreak Books Inc. p. 123. * ''Consul fabius'' is the most common and well known. It occurs from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

deciduous forest In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, after flo ...

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

, and

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

, at elevations between sea level and about 1200 m. The larvae feed on several species of

Piperaceae The Piperaceae (), also known as the pepper family, are a large family (biology), family of flowering plants. The group contains roughly 3,600 currently accepted species in five genera. The vast majority of species can be found within the two mai ...

. It is part of a

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 simples ...

ring and also mimics dead leaves.

References

External links

TOL"''Consul'' Hübner, [1807]"
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms''
Biolib
Anaeini Nymphalidae of South America Taxa named by Pieter Cramer Butterfly genera {{Charaxinae-stub