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Glite Dictionary
Heliconius

Heliconius

1 9.9
A group of brightly colored butterflies from Central and South America with bold wing patterns
  • proper noun
  • Specialized
: Heliconius
  • Many students in the biology lab were intrigued by the behavioral patterns of Heliconius butterflies.
  • genus Heliconius

Examples

  • The enchanting Heliconius butterflies can be found fluttering among the tropical flowers in the rainforest.

  • Most of the research he presented was on wing pattern variations in Heliconius butterflies.

    Blog text (10)

  • According to Larry Gilbert and his colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin, many species of the genus Heliconius visit the same plants in the same sequence every day and avoid sites where they have been caught and released with a net.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Researchers focused their studies on the bright wing colors of Heliconius butterflies native to Costa Rica.

Surface Forms

Heliconius main

Etymology

Heliconius comes from Helicon, a Greek mountain that was the home of the Muses, the spirits of art and song, and originally means 'of Helicon'. That's a helpful image: these butterflies are bright and beautiful like works of art, so Heliconius names a group of very colorful butterflies.