#heliconius

Red Postman Butterfly (Heliconius melpomene), family Nymphalidae, Colombia

Poisonous.

The genus is named after Mount Helicon from Greek mythology, the home of the Muses. Many Heliconius butterfly species are derived from the names of the Muses themselves - in this case the Muse of Tragedy.

A Nymphalid butterfly found in the Neotropics, with some 30 different colour forms - and the bulk of those forms are shared with the related Red Postman Heliconius erato. It seems that the same handful of genetic loci are responsible for the forms, based partly on breeding experiments within the two species. The identical patterns help, because both species are noxious to eat, and having the same warning patterns as your neighbours is a useful message to send to your predators. This is called  Müllerian mimicry, unlike Batesian Mimicry when one or more species in the mimicry ring is lying. They really hammer the message home by roosting communally at night, so only very stupid predators won't make the connection.

They usually avoid crossbreeding with mimics thanks to UV-sensitive eyes that can detect differences their predators can't see.

The common name refers to their habit of following the same route through the forest everyday, as they feed on Lantana, Amazon cucumber (Psiguria sp.) and other plants that they've memorised the locations of. Unusually for butterflies, they feed on pollen as well as nectar, which may account for the unusually long lifespan of the adult butterflies - 6 months. Pollen is an excellent source of protein.

Eggs are laid on a tiny handful of Passionvine species - which is odd because the caterpillars will survive just fine on a much wider range of Passionvines.