Heliconius demeter

Heliconius demeter, the Demeter longwing, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It was described by Otto Staudinger in 1897. It is found in the Northern and Eastern part of the Amazon basin, from Guyana to Northern Brazil and Peru.[1] The habitat consists of sandy rainforests.

Heliconius demeter
Dorsal view
Ventral view
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Heliconius
Species:	H. demeter
Binomial name
Heliconius demeter Staudinger, 1897
Synonyms
Heliconius demeter f. similis Neustetter, 1931 Heliconius demeter var. bouqueti Nöldner, 1901 Heliconia xanthoceras Oberthür, 1902 Heliconia eueidina Oberthür, 1916 Eueides egeriformis Joicey & Kaye, 1917 Heliconia automatia Oberthür, 1925 Heliconius eratoformis Neustetter, 1931

The larvae are solitary and feed on Dilkea (Passifloraceae) species. Full-grown larvae have a yellow body with black spots and a black head. They reach a length of about 20 mm.[1]

Adult H. demeter are distinguished morphologically from their sister species Heliconius eratosignis because they have a yellow streak on the base of the forewing costa underside;[1] in contrast, Heliconius eratosignis has a solid orange basal costal margin on the underside of the forewing. Brown & Benson in 1975 recognized these differences but argued that the two forms were subspecies of the same species. They also recorded both Heliconius eratosignis gregarious and H. demeter solitary larvae in their paper.[2] The Tree of Life web project has yet to recognize Heliconius eratosignis as a separate species, but shows an image of a male Heliconius eratosignis from Peru under the description of H. demeter.[3]