Butterflies – Hecale Longwing – Heliconius hecale
Photographed at Butterfly World in Fort Lauderdale in in 2009.
This member of the Heliconius genus is distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of Mexico through to the Amazonian regions of Peru. As with many others of the species, it is protected somewhat from potential predators by virtue of various chemicals sequestered from the host plant, Passiflora sp. and passed through the life cycle stages from larvae to adult stages and rendering it unpalatable to predators.
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