Doris Longwing, blue form
Heliconius doris
Doris Longwing · Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden · 7 February 2026
A Doris Longwing in its blue form in the butterfly house at Fairchild, a butterfly of the rainforests of Central and South America, from Mexico to the Amazon, where all three of its colour forms fly together in the same populations.
One species with three unrelated-looking colour forms - red, green and this blue one - not sorting by region. Why a single species keeps three separate wardrobes isn't fully settled. Unlike most butterfly mimicry, none of the forms has an obvious model it is copying, and a female can lay eggs that hatch into all three.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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