Urania leilus

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Green-banded urania
Urania leilus (Uraniidae).jpg
Urania leilus, Guadeloupe
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Uraniidae
Genus: Urania
Species:
U. leilus
Binomial name
Urania leilus
Synonyms
  • Papilio leilus Linnaeus, 1758
  • Papilio leilaria Hübner, [1807] (unj. emend.)

Urania leilus, the green-banded urania, is a day-flying moth of the family Uraniidae. Although many credit Carl Linnaeus with first describing the species in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Maria Sibylla Merian described the butterfly in her book Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, which was published in 1705.[1] It is found in tropical South America east of the Andes, including Suriname, French Guiana, eastern Colombia, Venezuela, eastern Ecuador, Brazil, northern Bolivia, eastern Peru, and Trinidad. It has been recorded as a vagrant to the central and northern Lesser Antilles such as St. Kitts, Barbados and Dominica.[2][3] The habitat consists of riverbanks in primary and secondary rainforest at elevations between sea level and about 800 m (2,600 ft).

  • Dorsal side

  • Ventral side

It is sometimes confused with the similar U. fulgens, but that species is found west of the Andes in South America, Central America and Mexico, is slightly smaller and has less white to the "tail".[3] The two have been treated as conspecific.[3]

The wingspan of U. leilus is about 70 mm (2.8 in).

As appears to be the case for all Urania, the larvae of U. leilus feed exclusively on species of the toxic spurge Omphalea.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ Merian, Maria Sibylla (1705). Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. Amstermdam. pp. Explicatio Figurae XXIX.
  2. ^ Barnes, M.J.C. (2002). "Urania leilus". Moths of the Grenadines. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  3. ^ a b c Smith, N.G. (1972). "Migrations of the day-flying moth Urania in Central and South America". Caribbean Journal of Science. 12: 45-58
  4. ^ Lees, D.C. & Smith, N.G. (1991). "Foodplant Associations of the Uraniinae (Uraniidae) and their Systematic, Evolutionary, and Ecological Significance". Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society. 45(4): 296-347.Archived 2012-08-02 at the Wayback Machine


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