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Today on Animal Fact Files we’re discussing postman butterflies. There are a few dozen butterfly species in the postman butterfly genus. The name "postman" comes from their behavior of returning to the same rows of flowers each day, just like a postal service worker delivering the mail! This is also known as traplining. The species focused on in this video is often referred to as the postman butterfly and is the most commonly observed species through large parts of its range.

The postman butterfly lives from Mexico and other parts of Central America down into South America in both the Amazon River Basin and along the slopes of the Andes Mountains. They're considered lowland butterflies and spend most of their time less than a mile above sea level in elevation. Postman butterflies live in forested areas and prefer places where there is shade and open air in which to fly. Forest edges, trails, streams, and rivers all provide the open yet shaded habitat these butterflies love!

Postman butterflies are active during the day, searching for food in the form of flower nectar, pollen, and rotting fruit. Not all butterflies consume pollen, but these butterflies chew pollen up with their proboscis and mix it together with nectar to create a nutrient-rich slurry. This slurry is believed to extend the adult postman's life as adults of this species can live at least six months! Considering many butterfly adults only live a few weeks, a few months is a pretty substantial difference!

As larvae, also known as caterpillars, these insects eat plant material from passion flower species. In fact, it's this toxic diet that in turn makes the caterpillars themselves toxic to eat and this trait remains with them for life. Adult postman butterflies have bright red stripes on their wings to warn predators they taste terrible. For this reason, these invertebrates have few natural predators.

There are dozens of postman butterfly markings even within the same species. The members of this genus mimic one another to the point that they can be almost indecipherable from their congeners. The postman often has yellow to white stripes that don't reach all the way to the butterfly's wing edges whereas similar-looking species display these bars out to the ends of their wings. Still, all postman butterfly species taste terrible along with mimicking each other, so they all end up providing additional protection to other members of their genus.

Postman butterflies go through complete metamorphosis. They begin life as eggs. These are yellow and laid singly on host passion flower plants. The larvae are white with black spots and spines and an orange head. A postman butterfly pupa is brown with black spines and gold spots. They resemble dead leaves as another method to keep predators away. Adult postman butterfly males are attracted to females via pheromones. They may even find females still pupating to try and get with! After mating, the male releases a scent on the female to deter other males from mating with her. 

Although they look strikingly similar to other members of their genus, these butterflies don't regularly hybridize with one another. Hybrid offspring may be infertile or their markings may be just different enough that birds and other vertebrate predators don't recognize the pattern and try to eat them anyway. So, for the most part, these similar-looking species use smell to find each other instead of sight!

For more facts on postman butterflies, check out the links below. Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today. Thank you to our Patrons SpikeSpiegel93, Dad, and everyone else for their support of this channel! And thank you for watching Animal Fact Files!