Heliconius melpomene (Linnaeus, 1758) - male

Unknown artist

At the needle there is the label for determining Aurelian Popescu-Gorj Species spread in Central and South America, from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama to Peru, Bolivia and southern Brazil (states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul); it was also reported from Trinidad and Tobago. An impressive number of subspecies have been described from different regions of this vast area. It is found at the legation, in the meadows and along the course of some flowing waters. The larvae develop on different toxic species of Passiflora sp. (P. oerstedii, P. menispermifolia, etc). They are able to take up toxins from the plant tissues they feed and store in the body, being inedible and consequently avoided by entomophages. The adults also have toxic hemolymph; the drawing on their wings (warning drawing, intended to warn potential predators) evolved in parallel with that of the congeneric species Heliconius erato (Linnaeus, 1764), which is one of the most famous and studied examples of mimetism müllerian.