Longwing Butterfly - a photo on Flickriver

Longwing Butterfly

One of the many butterflies at the Boise Zoo Butterflies Bloom Exhibit . It is a great place to view many different types of butterflies. You can walk through a greenhouse-like mesh enclosure with hundreds of butterflies. Zoo Boise Director Steve Burns says the butterflies come from Costa Rica. It gives the farmers in that area the opportunity to make money off of the forests rather than have to cut it down and ranch it so it is a great way for those folks to keep the rainforests intact and still make money for their families.
Butterfly cocoons of many different kinds are shipped Fed Ex from Costa Rica to Boise, where they hatch at the Zoo. There are up to 500 butterflies in the enclosure at any given time.

The tribe Heliconiini, colloquially known as Longwings, includes 71 species, all confined exclusively to the neotropics. The Heliconiini includes the genera Heliconius, Podotricha, Dryas, Agraulis, Dione, Dryadula, Eueides, Neruda, Laparus and Philaethria.
All Heliconius species have elongated black wings, marked with simple but striking patterns usually featuring streaks or patches of red and cream, or blue and cream. A few, such as sara, antiochus and wallacei have a metallic blue sheen over the basal area of both wings. All are characterised by their delicate fluttering flight, long straight antennae, and fondness for flowers.
Heliconius erato is probably the commonest and most widespread Heliconiine. It's 29 subspecies are distributed across the neotropical region from Mexico to Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina. The illustrated subspecies luscombei is confined to the Amazonian lowlands of south-eastern Peru, while microclea is restricted to mid-elevation sites in central Peru, and petiverana is Central American
This species occurs commonly at elevations between 0-1800m on both sides of the Andes. It can be seen flying in two's or three's around clearings, and along roads and tracks through primary forest. It is commoner however in secondary forest, and can be found flying in coffee plantations, gardens, orchards and along roadsides and forest edges. In regions such as Guanacaste where seasonality is pronounced, it is common in forest / pasture mosaics during the rainy season, but abandons these in favour of more heavily forested areas in the dry season.

From Learn About Butterflies

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Taken on: July 6, 2016

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Camera:	Canon EOS 7D
Lens:	EF-S18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/320)
Focal Length:	200mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
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