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Project Noah Nature School
Opisphanes tamarindi
This dragon-headed larva is the Narrow-Banded Owlet Butterfly of the Family Nymphalidae. It was 9 cm long and was found on the underside of heavily eaten banana leaves, stuck tight along the stem on a pad of silk it makes for itself to rest on during the day. The legs and prolegs are completely hidden under it's body and can only be seen by lifting the edges of the larva (picture 5). The body ends in a forked "tail" of blue and yellow.
Banana plant, forest of the Sumidero Canyon National Park, Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico.
To view the adult butterfly see: Male & Female of Adults: http://www.google.com.mx/imgres?imgurl=h... Closed Wing photo of adult butterfly: http://butterfliesofamerica.com/opsiphan...
Thank you Mayra, Chief RedEarth and Rick. It really was a shocking and fascinating thing to find!
Thank you EarlyStages for the information. "Enlightened Taxonomy" is a nice concept.
Thanks to an enlightened taxonomy where the adult butterfly is no longer considered the most important life stage, brassolids went from a family (Brassolidae), to a subfamily (Nymphalidae, Brassolinae), to now "only" a tribe (Nymphalidae, Satyrinae, Brassolini).
Wow Early Stages! I certainly seem to have made a mess of this one. Thank you so much for the identification. I will fix it all. For all my looking, I never came up with O. tamarindi. My Butterflies of Mexico book is also wrong too, I guess. I am so glad to know what it is, tarmarindi is a spot-on match!
Lauren, yes, O. boisduvallii larvae feed on palms, but your caterpillar is clearly on a banana leaf and, additionally, looks very different from that species. Also, Nelson Dobbs's photos show the adult of yet a third Opsiphanes.
Thank you so much everyone: Leanne, Phillip, Gerardo, ceherzog, Yuko, Emily, Dina, Carol, Luis and Rieko.
This is new to my eyes. I never thought that I would be interested in insects so much. My little eyes are getting wider. Thank you so much for sharing.
What a beautiful combination of colors and shapes! It's so beautiful that it looks almost like a caterpillar in fairy tales, but the amazing thing is, it really exists!
Excellent...looks like it's eating a White bird of Paradise or Traveler's Palm (not really a palm)
Spotted on Jan 20, 2013
Submitted on Jan 28, 2013
