Panthiades bathildis. The second head

All good health and good mood!

Lepidoptera contrive in a variety of ways to avoid becoming prey. Some draw flies on their wings, others disguise themselves as spiders, someone is making eyes that cause goosebumps... And hero of this post made itself the fake head.

This is zebra tail butterfly (Panthiades bathildis) from Lycaenidae family.

Автор снимка - Alan Schmierer ©

This is pretty big butterflies with wingspan to 4 cm. Their coloration rather bright and catchy. The upper side of wings in males covered with the brilliant blue scales and front wings have the dark macula. The wings of female overhand is whitish with the wide dark brown borders. The underside of the wings in both sexes have the same color of alternating black and white stripes which converge to the rear end of the wings and rest against the complex macula in orange, white and black elements. The two narrow tail-antennae complete the picture.

This complex picture is needed to deceive birds of prey. The lines converge to the macula, giving the illusion that it is the front of the body, and the spot together with the tails resembles a head.

The mechanism of this camouflage is simple. Birds during a hunt aims at the front part of the victims because insects fly ap usually in the ahead, and generally, many significant organs locate in the front part of body. But, the camouflage of the zebra tail butterfly as if flip this body backwards, because of what birds mistake and lose. Eventually, a butterfly loses only the tips of the wings, and then not always.

This amazing butterflies dwell in the tropical rainforests of two Americs - from Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela. The diet of adults is set exactly - they eat flower nectar. But about the diet of their larvae could not learn. We can suggest that they are not very fastidious because otherwise these butterflies could not have spread so widely.

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If you have heard about some unusual living organism, but you know almost nothing about it and want to see it in this section - leave orders in the comments. I will take into account your wishes and write about this creature in one of the next releases.

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The heads of some are actually in this place of the body...
Yours sincerely, @ivprst.