''Caligo teucer'', the Teucer owl butterfly
Learn about Butterflies is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

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 have a re ...

. It was described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. It is found from Colombia and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

and

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

. The habitat consists of rainforests and cloudforests at altitudes ranging from 400 to 1,400 meters. The

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

is about 100 mm. The larvae feed on ''

Heliconia ''Heliconia'', derived from the Greek word (), is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the ca 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the w ...

'' and ''

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 * Musa, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Iran *Musa, Kerman, Iran *Musa, Bukan, West Azerbaijan Pr ...

'' species. Caligo teucer semicaerulea MHNT dos.jpg, Dorsal view Caligo teucer semicaerulea MHNT ventre.jpg, Ventral view

Subspecies

*''Caligo teucer teucer'' Linnaeus, 1758 *''Caligo teucer ecuadora'' Joicey & Kaye, 1917 (Ecuador) *''Caligo teucer insulanus'' Stichel, 1904 (Trinidad) *''Caligo teucer japetus'' Stichel, 1903 (Paraguay) *''Caligo teucer nubilus'' Fruhstorfer, 1907 (Guyana) *''Caligo teucer obidonus'' Fruhstorfer, 1904 (Brazil: Pará, Amazonas) *''Caligo teucer phorkys'' Fruhstorfer, 1912 (Bolivia) *''Caligo teucer semicaerulea'' Joicey & Kaye, 1917 (Peru)

References

Butterflies described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Caligo Lepidoptera of Brazil Nymphalidae of South America {{Morphinae-stub