Reference photo of a pinned Tithorea harmonia 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 9 of 39

Tithorea harmonia

(Cramer, [1777])

Harmonia Tigerwing

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
For young explorers

Its caterpillars eat a plant called Prestonia.

Unlike most of its ithomiine relatives, which use nightshade-family plants, its caterpillars feed on Prestonia, a dogbane-family plant.

Catalog label
Family
Nymphalidae
Subfamily
Danainae
Tribe
Ithomiini
Where it lives
Central America; Northern South America

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

A medium-sized tigerwing with a tiger-style pattern. The forewings are mostly black with orange and pale yellow patches. The hindwings are orange, and from below they show black as well as orange. Rows of small white dots run along the wing edges, the antennae are orange, and the body has yellow and black bands. The forewing is fairly short and comes to a slight point. From below, the white spots along the hindwing edge come in pairs. Individuals differ a lot: the amount of black in the middle of the hindwing and the shape of the yellow forewing spots both vary.

Where it lives

The sources place this butterfly in the Neotropics, from Mexico south into South America. Several subspecies are recognized, each in its own area. One runs from southeastern Mexico into Guatemala, another from Nicaragua to Panama, and a third from Panama into Colombia. Other subspecies were first described from places in South America, including Surinam, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.

Habitat

A forest butterfly. In Costa Rica it is described as typical of dry lowland forest on the Pacific side, and it is seen only rarely in the Atlantic lowlands. A Colombian regional record says it occurs both inside forest and along forest edges where forest meets more open ground.

How the adults behave

In the Monteverde area of Costa Rica it is called uncommon, and adults sometimes pass through higher ground as migrants, away from their usual lowland forest. It belongs to the 'tiger' mimicry group of ithomiine butterflies, which is made up of unrelated species that look alike. A flight study included it to test whether butterflies in mimicry groups also fly in similar ways.

Life cycle

Like other butterflies, it goes through egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and adult stages. The young stages are reported to live alone rather than in groups. Its caterpillars feed on Prestonia, a vine in the dogbane family. That is unusual among its relatives, most of which use plants in the nightshade family.

Look-alikes

In Costa Rica it can be confused with other tiger-patterned ithomiines: Mechanitis polymnia, Hypothyris lycaste and Thyridia psidii. Mechanitis polymnia is also grouped with it in the same tiger mimicry group in flight research.

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