Two longwings, sharing a leaf
Heliconius sp.
Longwing · Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden · 7 February 2026
A tiger-patterned Heliconius above and a postman-patterned one below, sharing a leaf in the butterfly house at Fairchild. Both are longwings of the Central and South American forests, and in the wild they roost together at night in exactly this way, in groups on the same twig.
Two different species that have each landed, independently, on a bold black-and-colour warning pattern a bird learns to avoid after one bad meal. That is the whole logic of Müllerian mimicry: once a pattern is established as a danger sign, an unrelated species is safer converging on it than inventing its own.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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