Clearwings, Ithomiini

The Clearwings spend long periods at rest on the foliage of small shrubs in the darkness of cloudforest habitats. They are extremely nervous, and if disturbed fly immediately, only to resettle on another nearby leaf. The flight is very fluttery, with characteristic deep wing beats.

Clearwings has transparent wings with dark venes, slim long body and long tentacles, they fly slowly around between their favorite flowers in forest shade, often several species together. They are hard to photograph because there is very little light, often you must set the ISO 800 to 1250 to have a well-exposed photos. Blitz is a workaround because the outcome is not very successful.

Clearwings are unpalatable because their adults seek out and sequester pyrrolizidine alkaloids from plants that they visit, especially composit flower; Heliotropium, Eupatorium, Senecio (Asteraceae) and wilted borages (Boaginaceae). The slow-flying adults are Müllerian mimics of each other as well as of many other Lepidoptera. Identification of adult Clearwings relies on hindwing venation and male androconial scales (sex brushes located on the hindwing costa).

The group has repeatedly been proposed as biological indicators of ecological conditions or biological diversity with in cloudforest, on the habitats you can see between 6 and 25 species. Clearwings larvae feed mostly on Witheringia, Solanum, Acnistus and other Solanaceae host plants. These foodplants are highly toxic to birds and other small vertebrates. At one time it was thought that the chemicals within them were accumulated by the larvae, and passed on to the adult butterflies, rendering them distasteful to birds.

Ithomiini is a tribe in the Nymphalid subfamily Danainae. These butterflies are exclusively Neotropical, found in humid forests from sea-level to 3000 m, from the southwestern United States to Argentina. There are around 370 species in some 40-45 genera. In Bolivia, found 138 species in tribe Ithomiini, according  (Beccaloni & Gaston, 1994).                                                                                     Lars Andersen 1 march 2011