"Two-headed" butterfly in Venezuela

Iainp · Post by **Iainp** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 1:51 am

Another from my last trip to Venezuela. This is the wonderful Togarna Hairstreak (Arawacus togarna). It gives the impression of being 'back to front' which confuses predators into attacking the wrong end!

And here's a link to the short video I shot at the time, showing the butterfly walking around and also waving its pseudo-antennae (or is that due to the wind?)

https://youtu.be/sFxp3ujTOYo

Carmen · Post by **Carmen** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:56 am

Thank you Ian! Strange, but beautiful!

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 12:06 pm

Iainp wrote:... waving its pseudo-antennae (or is that due to the wind?)

Hairstreaks are fun to watch! The fine movements shown in the video are due to wind. The tails are just an extension of the wing veins and membranes, no muscle connections. But these butterflies also have a habit of moving the whole hind wings up and down slightly and alternately, so that the tails sort of scissor across each other. You can see some of that in the video, around 0:25 and following.

--Rik

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 12:22 pm

By the way, there's some recent work indicating that those "false heads" are effective against spiders as well as larger predators.

Read about the experiment run by Andrei Sourakov at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity:
https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/science-stori ... -the-ring/

--Rik

Iainp · Post by **Iainp** » Thu Jul 16, 2015 1:21 am

Fascinating. I did see several out there with the false head missing, presumably as a result of one of these 'close encounters.'

"Two-headed" butterfly in Venezuela

"Two-headed" butterfly in Venezuela

Re: "Two-headed" butterfly in Venezuela