Heliconius timareta
Heliconius contiguus
, Heliconius timareta ab. richardi , Heliconius melpomene timareta ab. virgata , Heliconius melpomene timareta f. insolita , Heliconius melpomene timareta f. peregrina , Heliconius timareta f. strandi Andrew V. Z. Brower and Margarita BeltránIntroduction
Heliconius timareta is a cognate of H. cydno (Brower 1994, 1996; Beltrán et al. 2007), occurring on the eastern slopes of the Andes in Ecuador and northern Peru. It is polymorphic in its color pattern, with individuals exhibiting either no red on the hindwings (nominate form), hindwing rays but no horizontal bar (forms contiguus, virgata, insolita, peregrina), or "complete" red rayed hindwing with the horizontal red bar and red rays (form strandi). There is also variation in the distribution and size of the yellow forewing spots. The various forms are likely to be involved in Müllerian mimicry with H. clysonymus (in the case of the forms with red hindwings) or H. sara/H. doris (in the case of those without).
Geographical Races
As noted above, there are a number of named sympatric forms that differ in the presence or absence of various red hindwing pattern elements. The names for these are infrasubspecific, and are considered to be synonyms of the nominate geographical race.
- Heliconius timareta timareta Hewitson 1867, eastern Ecuador
- Heliconius timareta timoratus Lamas 1998, northeastern Peru
References
Beltr?n, M., Jiggins, C. D., Brower, A. V. Z., Bermingham, E. & Mallet, J. 2007 Do pollen feeding, pupal-mating and larval gregariousness have a single origin in Heliconius butterflies? Inferences from multilocus DNA sequence data. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 92, 221-239.
Brower, A. V. Z. 1994 Phylogeny of Heliconius butterflies inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 3, 159-174.
Brower, A. V. Z. 1996 A new mimetic species of Heliconius (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), from southeastern Colombia, as revealed by cladistic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences. Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 116, 317-332.
Hewitson, W. C. 1867 Descriptions of some new species of diurnal Lepidoptera. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. Third Series, 5, 561-566.
Lamas, G. 1998 Comentarios taxon?micos y nomenclaturales sobre Heliconiini neotropicales con designaci?n de lectotipos y descripci?n de cuatro subespecies nuevas (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Heliconiinae). Rev. Per. Ent. 40, 111-125.
Lamas, G. (ed.) 2004 Atlas of Neotropical Lepidoptera. Checklist: Part 4A Hesperioidea - Papiionoidea. Gainesville: Scientific Publishers/Association of Tropical Lepidoptera.
About This Page
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Andrew V. Z. Brower at and Margarita Beltr?n at
Page copyright © 2006 and
Page: Tree of Life Heliconius timareta Authored by . Heliconius contiguus , Heliconius timareta ab. richardi , Heliconius melpomene timareta ab. virgata , Heliconius melpomene timareta f. insolita , Heliconius melpomene timareta f. peregrina , Heliconius timareta f. strandi .Andrew V. Z. Brower and Margarita Beltr?n. 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.
- First online 18 February 2007
- Content changed 25 June 2008
Citing this page:
Brower, Andrew V. Z. and Beltrán, Margarita. 2008. Heliconius timareta http://tolweb.org/Heliconius_timareta/72253/2008.06.25 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
. Heliconius contiguus , Heliconius timareta ab. richardi , Heliconius melpomene timareta ab. virgata , Heliconius melpomene timareta f. insolita , Heliconius melpomene timareta f. peregrina , Heliconius timareta f. strandi . Version 25 June 2008 (under construction).