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

Sara Longwing

Heliconius sara

Description:

The Sara Longwing (Heliconius sara) is a species of neotropical heliconiid butterfly found from Mexico to the Amazon Basin and southern Brazil. It is a colourful species: the dorsal wing surface is black with a large medial patch of metallic blue that is framed by two bands of white on the forewings.

Habitat:

Inhabiting rainforests, adults are commonly found among sparser secondary growth and along forest margins.

Notes:

Can anyone figure out what these butterflies are doing? I was far away and couldn't get closer so I only noticed the 'thing' between them when I put it on the computer. Pity the fern is in the way.

1 Species ID Suggestions

bayucca
bayucca 10 years ago
Sara Longwing
Heliconius sara Sara Longwing


Sign in to suggest organism ID

3 Comments

pamsai
pamsai 10 years ago

Wow, really interesting. Thank you Martin and bayucca.

bayucca
bayucca 10 years ago

They are actually doing the so called pupsl mating, as Martin already guessed. This mating habit is quite common in Heliconius species. They are 2males, but only one would be successful and there was observed, that the second one is sometimes chasing the other males away with tha flapping wings. Read more in my blog, which I should finish already a lomgtime ago, nice reminder doing my tasks...

MartinL
MartinL 10 years ago

The item that the two Heliconius butterflies are perched on is the pupa. They seem to be aged butterflies and therefore not freshly emerged. Some male butterflies wait nearby for a female to emerge from her pupa and mate before she flies. I do not know if this occurs with this species or not but it would be my suspicion.

pamsai
Spotted by
pamsai

Limón, Costa Rica

Spotted on Jul 17, 2013
Submitted on Aug 27, 2013

Related Spottings

Heliconius Heliconius Heliconius Heliconius sp.

Nearby Spottings

Crimson Patch Blue-frosted Banner (female) Spotting Glasswing Butterfly

Reference

Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team