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Butterflies of Zihuatanejo

SUPERFAMILY PAPILIONOIDEA

Long-tailed Skipper

Urbanus proteus

The long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) is a spread-winged skipper butterfly found throughout tropical and subtropical South America., it cannot live in areas with prolonged frost. It is a showy butterfly, with wings of light brown tinted with iridescent blue, and two long tails extending from the hindwings. The robust body is light blue dorsally. It has a large head, prominent eyes, and a wingspan between 4.5 and 6 centimeters. It lays white or yellow eggs, singly or in small clusters, which hatch into a caterpillar with a yellowish body and large, dark head. After two to three weeks, the caterpillar forms a pupa. Its pupa is contained in a rolled leaf and covered in fine bluish hairs. The pupa stage may last from one to three weeks, after which the adult emerges.

From Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tailed_skipper which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

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