Upside Down with a Purpose - _TNY_6174
The dirce beauty (Colobura dirce), also known as the zebra mosaic (and absolutely no one wondering why) is a rather small by tropical butterfly standards species.
But it has a cool trick though. The pattern at the rear end of the wings is intended to look a bit like the head of the butterfly and then this species combines this with nearly always landing with its head down.
It does this to fool predators (ie birds) to go for the head which they know is at the top - and then just end up with some small piece of the wing while the buterfly can fly away with its head intact.
This shot is from 2023 and taken in the Haga Ocean Butterfly House in Solna, Sweden and this species quite like to sit in this particular spot. Compare it to this shot from 2020: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/53265728860/
Upside Down with a Purpose - _TNY_6174
The dirce beauty (Colobura dirce), also known as the zebra mosaic (and absolutely no one wondering why) is a rather small by tropical butterfly standards species.
But it has a cool trick though. The pattern at the rear end of the wings is intended to look a bit like the head of the butterfly and then this species combines this with nearly always landing with its head down.
It does this to fool predators (ie birds) to go for the head which they know is at the top - and then just end up with some small piece of the wing while the buterfly can fly away with its head intact.
This shot is from 2023 and taken in the Haga Ocean Butterfly House in Solna, Sweden and this species quite like to sit in this particular spot. Compare it to this shot from 2020: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/53265728860/