Reference photo of a pinned Heliconius sara specimen, upper side

Reference photo

Photo: Yale Peabody Museum; photo by Paul Shamble 2011 · Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (via GBIF) · CC0 1.0 (cropped and resized). Not the specimen in Lucy’s drawer.

Tray 13 of 39

Heliconius sara

(Fabricius, 1793)

Sara Longwing

Order by November 30 for delivery by Christmas.

Your framed specimen is a different individual of the same species, chosen and mounted by Lucy.

  • Nymphalidae
  • Butterfly
Catalog label
Family
Nymphalidae
Subfamily
Heliconiinae
Tribe
Heliconiini
Where it lives
Mexico - Amazon Basin - Surinam, Brazil (Pará)

From the catalog of Lucy Garcia Salik, PhD. A mounted specimen from a licensed supplier.

Research notes

From published sources, not from Lucy’s catalog. Each note lists where it came from.

Description

From above, the wings are long, narrow and mostly black. A shiny metallic blue patch spreads out from near the body, and white bands cross the forewings. How much blue and white shows differs between regional forms, and some forms also have white marks along the wing edges. In at least one form, the underside is black with a white band and small red marks close to the body.

Where it lives

Sources describe this as a butterfly of Central and South America, and they map its regional forms separately. One form is listed on the Atlantic side from southeastern Mexico into Costa Rica, and another on the Atlantic side from Guatemala to Panama. A third is listed on the Pacific side of Costa Rica and Panama, and a fourth from Panama into Colombia and Venezuela.

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