Cheers Philzoid - as far as I'm aware the females also use it but only as a toxin. The posting was cracking - if I hadn't have been moving I'd have made a comment, perhaps I still will.
Cheers Chris - the move went well but I'm still surrounded in boxes - I might make a house inside a house out of them
Small Blue Grecian...
Or more correctly
Heliconius sara (Fabricius, 1793) of which there are approx 10 subspecies and I have my suspicions that this is the subspecies
theudela although that’s more of a guess really than anything else. The species itself can be confused with
H.wallacei when looking at the upperside although the diagnostic feature is that
H.wallacei has red streaks near the underside base of the wings whereas
H.sara has spots. It is found along the edges and more open areas of lowland jungles from Guatemala to Southern Amazonia.
Having researched and written about various mimics in the last couple of weeks I wasn’t surprised to find out that
H.sara is toxic. I’d already noted the boldly marked upper and under side which suggests “true” toxicity in these neo-tropical species and
H.sara retains the toxins from feeding during the larval stage. For butterfly photographers the stunning livery isn’t the only attraction as they are very long lived as they feed on nectar, in some cases reaching a grand old age of several months. They also show communal roosting and even better studies have shown that they use the “travelling salesman algorithm”. This means that they memorise the locations of food sources in their home ranges in association with their communal roost. They can then plan out the most efficient circuit which they then fly each day. So if you’re making a couple of visits to the same butterfly house you can try and work out where they will be and get set up ready.
One of the most interesting and possibly shocking behaviours exhibited by H.sara is pupal mating. The male emerges first and flies seeking out a pheromone released by the female pupae. In other species which show pupal mating the male will then settle down and wait for the female to start emerging and then he will mate with her whilst she is still emerging. In
H.sara the males will actually break open the pupa and as soon as the genitals are accessible he will copulate!
And with that graphic image I’ll leave it there for now...
Have a goodun
Wurzel