Escudo de la República de Colombia Escudo de la República de Colombia
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✎ Juan Pablo Rodríguez Malaver

✎ Juan Pablo Rodríguez Malaver

✎ Camilo Alméciga

The sara
Heliconius saraOrinoquia region

  • Generalities
  • Morpho-functionality
  • Lifecycle
  • Distribution

RECORRIDO VIRTUAL POR LA BIODIVERSIDAD DE COLOMBIA
Museo de Historia Natural
Universidad Nacional de Colombia

The sara
Heliconius sara

This genus of butterflies has been widely studied by geneticists and taxonomists due to its interesting speciation processes. Adults prefer to fly on the edges of forests and gardens with abundant vegetation. The females lay their eggs on the leaves of various passion flowers as they are the larvae's favorites. These butterflies are relatively small compared to others of the same genus.

Conservation status

Extinct

Extinct in the Wild

Critically Endangered

Endangered

Vulnerable

Near Threatened

Least Concern

Not Evaluated

Data Deficient

Morpho-functionality

Mouth

The lip palps of aduts allows it to carry pollen grains and feed them while you its flying.

Wings

Its two pairs of wings are used in thermoregulation, courtship and signaling.

Coloration

The scales on their wings have a series of longitudinal edges that alter the reflection of light, generating the colors that are seen in the field.

Lifecycle

The females come together to lay 15 to 40 eggs on the sprouts of host plants of the Passiflora. Their eggs are 1.1 mm high by 0.7 mm wide and are yellow. The larvae are migratory, which means, they travel from one plant to another. They have a yellow body with black bands and a black head. The pupa is a pale cream color with black spines and black veins on the wing pads, the antennae are short and have golden spots. In this species development takes about 35 days and as adults they live for several months.

The sara

Distribution

They have wide distribution in the Neotropics from southern Mexico to northern Bolivia and Paraguay. They are distributed altitudinally from 0 to 1200 m, preferably at the edges of the forest.

Distribution area