Under Construction

Heliconius wallacei Reakirt 1866

Margarita Beltrán
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Containing group: Heliconius

Characteristics

Early stages:  Eggs are cream and approximately 1.1 x 0.9 mm (h x w). Females usually place 1 to 30 eggs on growing shoots of the host plant. Mature larvae have a maroon body, with brown head and yellow scoli, length is around 1 cm. Caterpillars are gregarious. (Brown, 1981).

Geographical Distribution

Heliconius wallacei is distributed in the Amazon Basin. The map below 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 wallacei. © Margarita Beltran.

Habits

H. wallacei occurs from sea level to 1,200 m in tall forests. Usually individuals fly rapidly and in the lowerstory. Females mate multiply. Adults roost solitarily at night at 2-10 m above ground (Brown, 1981).

Hostplant: H. wallacei larvae feed primarily on plants from the subgenus Distephana (Passifloraceae) (Brown, 1981).

References

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

Reakirt T. 1866. Descriptions of some new species of diurnal Lepidoptera. Proceedings of the Academy of natural Sciences of Philadelphia 18(3): 238-249.

Title Illustrations
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Scientific Name Heliconius wallacei flavescens
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 wallacei flavescens
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

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Margarita Beltrán at

Page: Tree of Life Heliconius wallacei Reakirt 1866. Authored by Margarita Beltrán. 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. 2008. Heliconius wallacei Reakirt 1866. Version 12 August 2008 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Heliconius_wallacei/72247/2008.08.12 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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