Julia Heliconian Butterfly

Facts about Julia "Heliconian Butterfly, scientific name Julia Heliconian Butterfly is Dryas iulia". Julia Heliconian Butterfly is a variety of brush-footed butterfly that belongs to the genus Dryas of the Nymphalidae family. The Julia Heliconian Butterfly hail from Brazil to the southern parts of Texas and Florida. During the summer season the Julia Heliconian Butterfly can occasionally be seen as far as the northeastern parts of Nebraska. The Julia Heliconian Butterfly variety is greatly admired in butterfly homes because it is the longest surviving species and active all through the day. The Julia Heliconian Butterfly mostly live in gardens, tropical woodlands, subtropical hammock gaps and borders, and nearby meadows. The Julia Heliconian butterfly is a swift flier and frequents paths, clearings, and margins of woodlands and forests.

Features

The adult Julia Heliconian Butterfly is an elegant butterfly that has elongated thin wings, with a wingspan, ranging from 82 mm to 92 mm, with an orange colored body, and with black color markings. The wings of the male Julia Heliconian Butterfly are outlined in a slender black color line, whereas the females usually have more black color, softer wings. They also have more dark marks than the male ones on top of their wings. Usually, the male Julia Heliconian Butterfly are brighter than the females, which have a brighter orange color body and they will have fewer and smaller dark marks on the apex of their wings.

As the Julia Heliconian butterflies get older, they start losing a number of scales when compared to their younger stage. The Julia Heliconian butterflies have small claws on the end of their legs and their eyes resemble a soccer ball. The Julia Heliconian Butterfly is rather inedible to birds.

An interesting feature common to these elongated-winged, Julia Heliconian butterflies is that their particular proboscis will allow them to eat pollen. They are capable of getting amino acids from the pollen that they will not acquire from nectar. This exceptional diet enables them to survive longer than several other butterfly varieties

Diet

The Julia Heliconian butterfly mostly feeds on the nectar of flowers of plants, such as Shepherd's-needle and Lantana, and the caiman tears, the eye that irritates the butterfly to produce tears. Adult Julia Heliconian Butterfly forage down a set path of nectar resources every day in a behavior called trap-lining. The caterpillar of these butterflies feeds on the leaves of passion vines, as well as Yellow Passionflower and Passiflora affinis.

Behavior

The male Julia Heliconian butterflies use to patrol throughout the day for amenable female butterflies for mating. The female Julia Heliconian butterflies will not mate more than once and the female butterfly will lift her abdomen to make the mating process easy and comfortable. During mating, the male Julia Heliconian Butterfly will tow the female butterfly at its back. Once the male and the female butterflies start the mating process, they do not split until the process is completed, even if they are disturbed. They will fly jointly to a protected perch to complete the process.

The female Julia Heliconian Butterfly will lay her eggs singly in a shady place on Passiflora vines. The caterpillars of these butterflies have a yellow color and cylindrical-shaped body, and they have an orange color body when matured. On new development, caterpillars of the Julia Heliconian Butterfly feed on leaves. When they attain the pupa stage, they have the similar brown dead leaf look. The caterpillars are gregarious during the larvae stage.

Julia Heliconian Butterfly are insects. A Julia Heliconian Butterfly is a herbivore; Meaning that as a caterpillar its first food is its own eggshell and than it will eat the leaves of the plant on which it is hatched. When it becomes a Julia Heliconian Butterfly, it will feed mostly on nectar from flowers, rotting fruit and water with a "proboscis" - a long narrow tube in their mouth that looks like a straw.

Life cycle of a Julia Heliconian Butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Julia Heliconian Butterfly will attach its eggs to leaves with a special glue.

When caterpillars become fully grown they will attach to an appropriate leaf or small branch, than they will shed the outside layer of their skin and a hard skin underneath known as a "chrysalis" will be their new look
An adult Julia Heliconian Butterfly will come out from the "chrysalis" than it waits a few hours for its wings to dry and fill with blood, before it takes its first flight.

Julia Heliconian Butterfly can see yellow, green, and red. An adult Julia Heliconian Butterfly average life span is from a week to a year
The top flight speed of a Julia Heliconian Butterfly is 12 miles per hour and some moths can fly up to 25 miles per hour.
A Julia Heliconian Butterfly is cold-blooded, which means the body temperature is not regulated on its own. A Julia Heliconian Butterfly can't fly or eat if their body temperature is below 82 degrees fah (28 cel). Julia Heliconian Butterfly are often basking in the sun with their wings open to gain heat and than the veins in the wings carry the heat to the body.
A Julia Heliconian Butterfly has sense organ, on their feet or tarsi, for tasting
The estimate is between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly.

A Julia Heliconian Butterfly has a small body, made up of three parts – the head, abdomen and thorax. A Julia Heliconian Butterfly has two large eyes, which are made up of many small parts which are called "compound eyes".
A Julia Heliconian Butterfly has two antenna's on the top of their heads, which they use to smell, hear and feel. A butterfly’s mouth is a long tube a "proboscis" - a long narrow tube in their mouth that looks like a straw when its done eating, it rolls the tube back up.

A Julia Heliconian Butterfly has three pairs of legs and their feet have little claws that help them stand on flowers. The butterfly's wings are made up of hard tubes that are covered with a thin tissue. The Julia Heliconian Butterfly wings are covered with fine dusty like scales. A Julia Heliconian Butterfly has four brightly colored wings having distinctive patterns made up of tiny scales. The bright patterns scales sometimes have hidden ultraviolet patterns for attracting mates. The bright colors are also used as camouflage to hide them or scare off predictors.