Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Doris Longwing

Laparus doris viridis

Description:

Red, black and white butterfly with tiny white spots along the bottom inside the wing and along the body.

Habitat:

Spotted at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Escondido

1 Species ID Suggestions

bayucca
bayucca 11 years ago
Doris Longwing
Laparus doris viridis Laparus doris viridis (Staudinger, 1885)


Sign in to suggest organism ID

5 Comments

CoralAvery
CoralAvery 11 years ago

Danke bayucca! I think your correct about the 4th picture and it is a Red Postman Butterfly (Heliconius erato) so I can add this to my other spotting of this species. As for the Laparus doris viridis, I do think subspecies are important as well, but I don't have any other pictures of it to verify the subspecies. I will add viridis as the scientific name however and thank you for your help! :)

bayucca
bayucca 11 years ago

Hi CoralAvery! Thanks for your visits on my spottings and your very nice comments and du schreibst sehr gutes Deutsch! ;-)...
I understand your doubts about my Viridis. I think you mean the different open wing shots from Viridis in my provides links and your spotting #4. This one is a different one and not Laparus doris viridis. It is either Heliconius melpomene or Heliconius erato. I am still confident with Laparus doris viridis. I know there are some people who do not bother about subspecies but I have another opinion about subspecies! In Heliconius you have such different looking ones within the same species it is important to have the subspecies (if known) together with the location which is also important in Heliconius. Besides you have all these tricky mimics even in closed location which look almost the same between the different mimic species (like Heliconius melpomene and Heliconius erato see your #4), but may look completely different if you look at pictures from the same species!
Take a look here: You have blue and red ones:
http://butterfliesofamerica.com/laparus_...
Look carefully at this link! All the same species: Heliconius hecale and all are looking completely different (at least in my eyes and I think you see the differences as well). I can not understand why one can not bother about subspecies...
http://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/L/t/...

CoralAvery
CoralAvery 11 years ago

Thank you Sachin Zaveri! Bayucca, I have side profile and a view of the top of the wings. Based on the Wikipedia site for Doris Longwing, the picture of Laparus doris viridis has a different pattern on the wings than my spotting. Here's the site so you can check it out. It's the top right picture!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laparus_dor...

Sachin Zaveri
Sachin Zaveri 11 years ago

Beautiful,

bayucca
bayucca 11 years ago

Laparus doris viridis is #1 to #3. #4 is a different one. Either Heliconius melpomene or Heliconius erato. Please, make a separate post with this one and try to find a shot from the side, even it is a "bad" one. It may help to get the definite ID!

CoralAvery
Spotted by
CoralAvery

San Diego, California, USA

Spotted on Apr 3, 2012
Submitted on Jul 24, 2012

Related Spottings

Doris longwing Doris Longwing Rayed Longwing Doris

Nearby Spottings

Spotting Green Wood Hoopoe Bontebok Yellow-backed Duiker
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team