Agacles sailor butterfly caterpillar

Once again, EarlyStages, thank you very much for helping me with another ID. And please extend my thanks to Dr. Anderson Leite, for confirmation of ID and the compliment to the photos.

Pers. comm. from Dr. Anderson Leite: "This is definitely Dynamine agacles agacles. The color of the sample in the picture is too vivid (better in the nature, right!?), which is a little different from my picture in the paper, although the pattern and distribution of the dorsal scoli show that this is agacles. Excellent picture!!"

Parece que ela tem um monte de coroas sobre as costas! Demais!!

Linda Sergio!!

My pleasure, Sérgio; here's another reference . . .
http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu/caterpillars...
FYI, both D. agacles (above) and D. postverta (here) occur around Curitiba.

Thank you very much for this ID, Earlystages, and for the nice comments too. Sailor butterflies are really common around here but, seeing one of these beauties flying around one could never guess they are so agressive.

For a PDF of the above report with high-quality figures: www.insectscience.org/12.37/i1536-2442-1.... Note sticky blobs on the tips of rosette spines. Caterpillars in this genus are remarkably aggressive, even cannibalistic. I remember watching a last-instar Sailor larva use its mandibles to fatally seize and toss aside a Red Rim (Biblis hyperia) cat of similar size that was encountered on the foodplant, and on a different occasion and species, bemoaning the loss of a half-eaten sibling found on the floor of my well-stocked rearing lab.

Sérgio, my friend, so here's where you've been "hiding"! I often wondered why I hadn't seen any lagartas from you in recent months. I'm going to begin with this, an almost never photographed and highly aggressive caterpillar that feeds on Dalechampia (Euphorbiaceae), as the pubescent vine in your above three shots appears to be, which BTW is an excellent source of numerous Biblidinae larvae. But first, just to confirm, can you please send other angles to my Comcast email account? Muito obrigado, Sérgio, and congratulations on an outstanding spotting!