''Cethosia cydippe'', the eastern red lacewing, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

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 ...

from Australia,

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and nearby islands. The Australian subspecies, ''C. c. chrysippe'', is known as the red lacewing butterfly.

Description

The imagines have scarlet wings with thick black edges and a diagonal white patch on the forewings. The underside is orange with similar white patches and lines of black spots, each with a white outline. The wingspan is around .

Ecology and life cycle

Pale yellow

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

are laid in groups of 50 on the host plant. The

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larva, larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterfly, butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawfly ...

s which hatch from those eggs are

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

, feeding on

vine A vine ( Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners thems ...

s in the family

Passifloraceae The Passifloraceae are a family of flowering plants, containing about 750 species classified in around 27 genera. They include tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches a ...

, including ''

Adenia heterophylla ''Adenia heterophylla'', commonly known in Australia as the lacewing vine, is a climbing plant in the family Passifloraceae. It has a broad distribution spanning the equator, from the south eastern corner of China, through Indochina and Males ...

'' (lacewing vine) and '' Hollrungia aurantioides'' (Queensland passion-fruit). They are black with yellow bands and long black hairs, and form congregations on the host plants. The

pupa A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

e are brown and spiky with black and gold markings, hang from a cremaster and resemble a dead leaf.

Taxonomy and distribution

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, ...

in the 1767 12th edition of ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nom ...

'' as ''Papilio cydippe''. He had previously described a European species, now classified as ''

Argynnis ''Argynnis'' is a genus of butterflies in the family Nymphalidae, one of several groups known as "fritillaries". Its species are commonly found in Europe and Asia. Systematics Several current species of ''Argynnis'' used to be included in disti ...

'', under that name in ''

Fauna Svecica ''Fauna Svecica'' ("Fauna of Sweden", ed. 1, Stockholm, 1746; ed. 2 Stockholm, 1761) was written by Swedish botanist, physician, zoologist and naturalist Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ...

''. ''

Centuria Insectorum The first page of ''Centuria Insectorum'', as included in ''Amoenitates Academicæ'' ' (Latin, "one hundred insects") is a 1763 taxonomic work by Carl Linnaeus, and defended as a thesis by Boas Johansson; which of the two men should for taxonom ...

''. Although the

Principle of Priority 270px, '' Valid name (zoology)">valid name. Priority is a fundamental principle of modern botanical nomenclature and zoological nomenclature. Essentially, it is the principle of recognising the first valid application of a name to a plant or an ...

zoological nomenclature The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the Int ...

would normally require the oldest name to be used, the 1767 name has been conserved against any earlier homonyms. Linnaeus quoted a

type locality Type locality may refer to: * Type locality (biology) * Type locality (geology) See also * Local (disambiguation) * Locality (disambiguation) {{disambiguation ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, but this has been interpreted as a reference to Indonesia, and the type locality is now

Ambon Ambon may refer to: Places * Ambon Island, an island in Indonesia ** Ambon, Maluku, a city on Ambon Island, the capital of Maluku province ** Governorate of Ambon, a colony of the Dutch East India Company from 1605 to 1796 * Ambon, Morbihan, a co ...

. A number of subspecies are recognised, including ''C. c. cydippe'' (Linnaeus, 1767) and ''C. c. chrysippe'' (Fabricius, 1775). ''C. c. cydippe'' occurs in the

Aru Islands The Aru Islands Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru) is a group of about 95 low-lying islands in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It also forms a regency of Maluku Province, with a land area of . At the 2011 Census the Regency had a p ...

, the

Kai Islands The Kai Islands (also Kei Islands) of Indonesia are a group of islands in the southeastern part of the Maluku Islands, located in the province of Maluku. The Moluccas have been known as the Spice Islands due to regionally specific plants such ...

and Maluku in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, and on

, both in the Indonesian

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

and in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. ''C. c. chrysippe'' was first described by

Johan Christian Fabricius Johan Christian Fabricius (7 January 1745 – 3 March 1808) was a Danish zoology, zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, an ...

in his ''

Systema Entomologiae Systema (russian: Система, Sistema, system) is a Russian martial art. There are multiple schools of systems that began appearing after the end of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, with teachers claiming their respective "systems" (usually ...

'' in 1775, as ''Papilio chrysippe'', with a type locality of

Cooktown, Queensland Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repa ...

. The subspecies is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, where it is found in the northern

Gulf Country The Gulf Country is the region of woodland and savanna grassland surrounding the Gulf of Carpentaria in north western Queensland and eastern Northern Territory on the north coast of Australia. The region is also called the Gulf Savannah. It ...

and north-east coastal region. All recognised subspecies listed alphabetically: * ''C. c. alkmene'' Fruhstorfer, 1902 (D'Etrecasteaux Archipelago) * ''C. c. antoni'' Kawai, 1996 (Tanimbar Island) * ''C. c. bernsteini'' C. & R. Felder, 867/small> (Bachan, Halmahera, Morotai) * ''C. c. cenchrites'' Fruhstorfer, 1909 (New Guinea) * ''C. c. chrysippe'' (Fabricius, 1775) (Cape York) * ''C. c. cleanthis'' Fruhstorfer, 1902 (Trobriand Islands) * ''C. c. cydalima'' C. & R. Felder, 867/small> (Aru, Goram) * ''C. c. cydippe'' (Linnaeus, 1767) (Serang, Ambon, Saparua) * ''C. c. cyrene'' Wallace, 1869 (Waigeu) * ''C. c. damasippe'' C. & R. Felder, 867/small> (New Guinea) * ''C. c. doxata'' Fruhstorfer, 1913 (Goodenough Island) * ''C. c. insulata'' Butler, 1873 (Kai Island) * ''C. c. imperialis'' Butler, 1876 (Cape York to Townsville) * ''C. c. iphigenia'' Fruhstorfer, 1901 (Buru) * ''C. c. lucina'' Fruhstorfer, 1905 (Jobi) * ''C. c. mysolensis'' Fruhstorfer, 1913 (Mysol Island) * ''C. c. obiana'' Fruhstorfer, 1903 (Obi) * ''C. c. sangira'' Fruhstorfer, 1906 (Sangihe?, Sangira Island) * ''C. c. salwattensis'' Fruhstorfer, 1913 (Salwtti) * ''C. c. schoutensis'' Joicey & Noakes, 1915 (Biak) * ''C. c. woodlarkiana'' Fruhstorfer, 1902 (Woodlark Island)

References

External links

''Cethosia cydippe''

Tree of Life Web Project The Tree of Life Web Project is an Internet project providing information about the diversity and phylogeny of life on Earth. This collaborative peer reviewed project began in 1995, and is written by biologists from around the world. The site ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1057689 Acraeini Butterflies described in 1767 Butterflies of Australia Butterflies of Asia Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus