South American Beauty

My niece sent me this photo - figures they're found in South America! Here is the body of her e-mail:

Lives in South America
A butterfly with transparent wings is rare and beautiful.
As delicate as finely blown glass, the presence of this rare tropical gem is used by rain forest ecologists as an indication of high habitat quality and its demise alerts them of ecological change. Rivaling the refined beauty of a stained glass window, the translucent wings of the Glasswing butterfly shimmer in the sunlight like polished panes of turquoise, orange, green, and red.

Just beautiful, thanks for sharing the pics!

Oh WOW! Those photos are just fabulous! What a neat looking butterfly! Thanks for posting the photo and sharing your niece's e-mail. Very interesting! I bet she sees all kinds of gorgeous butterflies in South America. I wish some would fly east and land in my yard! lol

Truly awesome!! Yes, Thank you for sharing the email and Thank your neice for sharing her experiences. Such a delicate looking butterfly.

Would love to see other photos if she has them to share.

oh how beautiful

Such a beautiful butterfly!

...and they've been sighted in south Texas as well. Rare strays coming from Mexico to the Rio Grande Valley.

This Broad-tipped Clearwing (pteronymia cotytto) was sighted December 7, 2005.

http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/cotytto.html

This Thick-tipped Greta (greta morgane) was sighted December 8, 2004

http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/morgane.html

Needless to say, we're all on "Clearwing Watch" this month but the weather has been most uncooperative. Dreary chilly days with little or no sunshine.

...and if anyone knows where I can obtain their larval host plants: cestrum racemosum, cestrum lanatum, cestrum sp. san luis or solanum nudum....do let me know!!! I can always hope to tempt them to my back yard in south Texas with these plants.

~ Cat

Wow - thats amazing we could get any that far north, thanks for the pics Cat, I'll share them with my niece!
Jill

http://www.cs.umb.edu/~whaber/Monte/Ithomid/Gre-oto.html
http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu/Wadults/resultsfoodsumry2.lasso?herbivore%20species=Nisoniades

Have a look at those Cat... I was just surfin. Maybe not useful, but interresting. :-O

Jill~ So does your niece live in South America?

Beautiful pictures!

Deb....I live on that Monteverde page :o) that's where I got my list of clearwing plant wants :o)

~ Cat

Debnes , my niece ... no - LOL! A little town in Nebraska called Bennington. I'm not sure I'd want any of my relatives living in South America - scary stuff happens there , beautiful of course tho. I'm not sure where she got the photo but she knows I'm a big nature-plant-ecology lover so she sent it to me. I'd love to see these glass wings in person, maybe I'll travel south one day & get a look at them.