Kamehameha butterfly

Taxobox
name = Kamehameha butterfly

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image_width = 240px
status = NE
status_system = iucn3.1
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Lepidoptera
familia = Nymphalidae
genus = "Vanessa"
species = "V. tameamea"
binomial = "Vanessa tameamea"
binomial_authority = (Eschscholtz, 1878)

The Kamehameha butterfly ("Vanessa tameamea") is one of the two species of butterfly native to Hawai‘i (the other is "Udara blackburnii"). The Hawaiian name is "pulelehua". This is today a catch-all native term for all butterflies; its origin seems to be "pulelo" "to float" or "to undulate in the air" + "lehua", a "Metrosideros polymorpha" flower: an animal that floats through the air, from one "lehua" to another. Alternatively, it is called "lepelepe-o-Hina" - roughly, "Hina's fringewing" - which is today also used for the introduced Monarch butterfly.

The caterpillars feed on "Pipturus albidus" ("māmaki").

It is named after the royal House of Kamehameha; the last king of this lineage, Kamehameha V, had died in 1872, a short time before this species was described. The specific name "tameamea" is an old-fashioned and partially wrong transcription of "Kamehameha". The Hawaiian language has no strict distinction between the voiceless alveolar plosive and voiceless velar plosive; use varies from island to island and today, "k" is used as the standard transliteration. The voiceless glottal transition "h" is distinct and should always be pronounced - for example, "aloha" is correct whereas "aloa" is a wrong pronunciation.