Heliconius melpomene

Heliconius melpomene
Common Postman
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Heliconius
Species: H. melpomene
Binomial name
Heliconius melpomene
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Subspecies

many, see text
Synonyms

Papilio melpomene Linnaeus, 1758

The Postman Butterfly, Common Postman, or simply Postman[1] (Heliconius melpomene) is one of the Heliconiine butterflies found from Mexico to northern South America.[2] Several species in the genus have very similar markings and are difficult to distinguish.

Contents

Subspecies

Subspecies of Heliconius melpomene (Linnaeus, 1758) include[3]:

  • Heliconius melpomene aglaope (C. & R. Felder, 1862)
  • Heliconius melpomene amandus (Grose-Smith & Kirby, 1892)
  • Heliconius melpomene amaryllis (C. & R. Felder, 1862)
  • Heliconius melpomene cythera (Hewitson, 1869)
  • Heliconius melpomene euryades (Riffarth, 1900)
  • Heliconius melpomene malleti (Lamas, 1988)
  • Heliconius melpomene melpomene (Linnaeus, 1758)
  • Heliconius melpomene meriana (Turner, 1967
  • Heliconius melpomene modesta (Riffarth, 1900)
  • Heliconius melpomene nanna (Stichel, 1899)
  • Heliconius melpomene penelope (Staudinger, 1894)

  • Heliconius melpomene penelope♂ dorsal side

  • Heliconius melpomene penelope ♂ △ - ventral side

  • Heliconius melpomene penelope ♀ dorsal side

  • Heliconius melpomene penelope ♀ △ ventral side

  • Heliconius melpomene plesseni (Riffarth, 1907)
  • Heliconius melpomene sticheli (Riffarth, 1907)
  • Heliconius melpomene rosina (Boisduval, 1870)
  • Heliconius melpomene thelxiope (Hübner, [1806])
  • Heliconius melpomene unimaculata (Hewitson, 1869)
  • Heliconius melpomene vicinus (Ménétriés, 1847)
  • Heliconius melpomene vulcanus (Butler, 1865)
  • Heliconius melpomene xenoclea (Hewitson, [1853]

Description

HeliconiusMelpomene.jpg
on flowers

The Postman butterfly has large long wings with an orange stripe down each forewing. It is poisonous and has red patterns on its wings. They tend to look similar to the species Heliconius erato. Two features found on the underside help to distinguish H. erato from 'H. melpomene—H. erato has four red dots where the wing attaches to the thorax while H. melpomene has three and the yellowish white stripe on the underside reaches the margin of the hindwing in H. erato but ends before reaching the margin in H. melpomene.[1]

There are many forms of this butterfly. The geographical variation in patterns has been studied using crossing experiments and it has been found that the patterns are associated with a small number of genetic loci.[4]

Origins

A recent study, using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) datasets, places the origins of H. melpomene at 2.1 Mya [5]. H. melpomene shows clustering of AFLPs by geography suggesting that the species originated in eastern South America[6].

Distribution

The distribution of this butterfly is from Central America to Southern Brazil.

Larva

The caterpillar feeds on passion flower species. In Central America, the host plants are Passiflora oerstedii and Passiflora menispermifolia. In other places they breed on several other Passiflora species.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Henderson, C.L. (2009) Butterflies, Moths, and Other Invertebrates in Costa Rica. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, p.47.
  2. ^ Heliconius melpomene, funet.fi
  3. ^ Wahlberg N. (last change 26 August 2006). Heliconiini. Nymphalidae.net, accessed 5 February 2010.
  4. ^ Sheppard PM, Turner JRG, Brown KS, Benson WW, Singer MC. 1985. Genetics and the evolution of Muellerian mimicry in Heliconius butterflies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (B) 308: 433-613
  5. ^ Quek, S. P., B. A. Counterman, P. A. de Moura, M. Z. Cardoso, C. R. Marshall, W. O. McMillan, and M. R. Kronforst. 2010. Dissecting comimetic radiations in heliconius reveals divergent histories of convergent butterflies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107:7365-7370.
  6. ^ Quek, S. P., B. A. Counterman, P. A. de Moura, M. Z. Cardoso, C. R. Marshall, W. O. McMillan, and M. R. Kronforst. 2010. Dissecting comimetic radiations in heliconius reveals divergent histories of convergent butterflies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107:7365-7370.
  7. ^ Smiley JT. 1978. Plant chemistry and the evolution of host specificity: new evidence from Heliconius and Passiflora. Science 201: 745-7

Further reading

External links

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