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Heliconius xanthocles H. W. Bates 1862

Margarita Beltrán and Andrew V. Z. Brower
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Containing group: Heliconius

Introduction

A widespread lowland tropical forest species.

Characteristics

Early stages:  Eggs are yellow and approximately 1.1 x 0.9 mm (h x w). Females gather together and usually each place 10 to 40 eggs on growing shoots and tendrils of the host plant. Early instar larvae have a yellow body with black bands. Mature larvae have black scoli and head, length is approximately 0.3 cm. Caterpillars are gregarious (Brown, 1981).

Adult: Heliconius xanthocles adults can be distinguished from other Heliconius species by the presence of yellow scales on the edges of the abdominal segments, giving the abdomen a ringed appearance. The wing patterns exhibit a high degree of geographical polymorphism. Several races from northern South America have entirely black hindwings, and one from southeastern Colombia (H. xanthocles explicata Brown 1976) has almost no red on either forewing or hindwing.

Geographical Distribution

Heliconius xanthocles is distributed in the Amazon basin. This map shows an approximate representation of the geographic distribution of this species. The original data used to draw these maps are derived from Brown (1979) which is available at  Keith S. Brown Jr. (1979). Ecological Geography and Evolution in Neotropical Forests

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Distribution of Heliconius xanthocles. © 2002 Margarita Beltran.

Habits

H. xanthocles occurs from sea level to 1,500 m in marginal forest.  Usually individuals fly rapidly and in the canopy.

Hostplant: H. xanthocles larvae feed primarily on Passiflora from the subgenus Granadilla, from Simplicifoliae, Lobatae, and Kermesinae sections. The secondary natural food plants are Quadrangulares/Digitales/Laurifoliae and Menispermifoliae/Setaceae/Pedateae/imbricatae/Incarnatae sections (Brown, 1981).

References

Bates H. W. 1862 Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon Valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidae. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 23(3): 495-566, pls. 55-56.

Brown, K. S., Jr. 1979 Ecologia Geográfica e Evolução nas Florestas Neotropicais. Campinas, São Paulo, Brasil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas.

Brown K. S. 1981 The Biology of Heliconius and Related Genera. Annual Review of Entomology 26, 427-456.

Lamas, G. 2004 Atlas of Neotropical Lepidoptera. Checklist: Part 4A Hesperioidea - Papiionoidea. Gainesville: Scientific Publishers/Association of Tropical Lepidoptera.

Title Illustrations
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Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Scientific Name Heliconius xanthocles
Specimen Condition Dead Specimen
View Dorsal
Collection Gerardo Lamas
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License - Version 3.0.
Copyright ©
Scientific Name Heliconius xanthocles
Specimen Condition Dead Specimen
View Ventral
Collection Gerardo Lamas
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License - Version 3.0.
Copyright ©
About This Page


University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK


Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Margarita Beltrán at and Andrew V. Z. Brower at

Page: Tree of Life Heliconius xanthocles H. W. Bates 1862. Authored by Margarita Beltrán and Andrew V. Z. Brower. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Beltrán, Margarita and Andrew V. Z. Brower. 2008. Heliconius xanthocles H. W. Bates 1862. Version 13 August 2008 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Heliconius_xanthocles/72244/2008.08.13 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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