Spend a moment in our Butterfly Rainforest with Ryan talking about the Mosaic butterfly, Colobura dirce, also called the zebra mosaic or Dirce beauty. This species is native to Central and South America and notable for its “false head”—special markings on the tail intended to trick predators into biting the wrong end and giving it a chance to escape.
Here in the exhibit you’ll see these small butterflies flashing their striped outer wings and brown inner wings while feeding on fruit or sunning themselves.
Transcript
Hello welcome to the Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
My name is Ryan, and today we’ll be releasing a little more unusual butterfly called the Mosaic, also known as the zebra mosaic because of all these stripes on its wings. You see it’s a little on the smaller side. On the inside it’s not quite as interesting I suppose. He might disagree. He might think it’s very interesting on the inside. But ultimately what’s interesting to us is that he has a little stubby tail tip to his wings, which he’s not wanting to show off. But it’s a little short tail that has a little spot on it very similar to the Blue Morphos and the Owl butterflies that have a big eye spot. This one’s being a bit more subtle about it, but instead of having just one eye spot he has as a whole, what we call ‘false head,’ on the back side of his wings. It’s still doing the same thing. It’s still trying to trick predators into biting that false head instead of his actual head.
Mosaic butterflies are also a woodland species so they do feed on rotting things including fruits and dung. You’ll also note that he’s a little on the smaller side, but again, that’s okay. There’s no such thing as a butterfly that’s too small or too big and the species is just a little bit on a smaller side compared to the big flashy Blue Morphos. Colobura dirce if you’re curious to know what the scientific name was. I’m sure I butchered that name. Four years of Latin did me no good.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed learning a little bit about Mr. Mosaic here. I hope you all remain healthy and safe and have a great rest of the day. Thank you.
About the Butterfly Rainforest exhibit
Support the exhibitVideo by Ryan Fessenden; Produced by Radha Krueger