Best Butties - Orange Tigers

Best Butties - Orange Tigers

Taken in the butterfly exhibit at the Tucson Botanic Gardens.

The Banded Orange Heliconian, Banded Orange, or Orange Tiger, is a species of butterfly (an insect). The sole representative of its genus, the Banded Orange Heliconian is native from Brazil to central Mexico, and in summer it can be found rarely as far north as central Kansas. Its wingspan ranges from 86 to 89 mm, and it is colored a bright orange with thick black stripes in males, and a duller orange with fuzzier black stripes in females.

It feeds primarily on the nectar of flowers and bird droppings, and its caterpillar feeds on passion vines including Passiflora tetrastylis. It is generally found in lowland tropical fields and valleys.

This species is somewhat unpalatable to birds and belongs to the “orange” Batesian mimicry complex (Pinheiro 1996).

Best Butties - Orange Tigers belongs to the following groups:

Butterflies, Skippers, Moths, & Other Winged Insects (2 a Day), Creative, Talented, and Unknown, Insects, Bugs and Creepy Crawlies (2 A Day), Just Butterflies, Made By Nature - {2 a day} - {Nature images only!}, Nature's Wonders and Shameless Self-Promotion Available for sale as

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints, Framed Prints and Posters