''Caligo telamonius memnon'', commonly known as the giant owl or pale owl, is a subspecies of

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

of the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species ha ...

. This subspecies can be found in rainforests and secondary forests from Mexico to the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

in South America.''Caligo telamonius''
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms'' The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...

is usually from 115 to 130 mm, but can reach 150 mm. The larvae feed on ''

Musa Musa may refer to: Places *Mūša, a river in Lithuania and Latvia * Musa, Azerbaijan, a village in Yardymli Rayon * Musa, Iran, a village in Ilam province, Iran * Musa, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Iran * Musa Kalayeh, Gilan province, Iran * Abu M ...

'' and ''

Heliconia ''Heliconia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku (province), ...

'' species and can be a pest for banana cultivation. Adults feed on juices of rotting fruit.

Gallery

File:Caligo memnon larva 003.JPG, Larva File:Caligo memnon.jpg, A pair at La Paz Waterfall Gardens,

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

File:Caligo memenono Búho Cerca.jpg, A close up of the species

References

Caligo Taxa named by Cajetan von Felder Taxa named by Rudolf Felder Butterflies described in 1867 Nymphalidae of South America Butterflies of Central America Lepidoptera of Mexico {{Morphinae-stub