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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the January, 12 2009 Newsletter written at Hacienda San Juan Lizárraga one kilometer east of Telchac Pueblo, Yucatán, MÉXICO
SISTER BUTTERFLIES
At first, this butterfly was identified as the Massilia Sister, Adelpha paraena ssp. massilia, but in 2024 when the above image was uploaded to iNaturalist, user "aleturkmen" recognized the very closely related ADELPHA IPHICLEOLA ssp. IPHICLEOLA. User "aleturkmen" is a pubished expert on Mexican butterflies, so despite my uncertainty about the identification, I'm going with his ID. This species is widely distributed throughout the tropical Americas.
I've seen butterflies very like this in many places -- brown butterflies with bold white bars forming Vs across their backs, and with orange patches near their wingtips. As the butterflies perch they tend to open and close their wings, maybe causing a predator to think in terms of a dangerous mouth opening and closing.
In fact, 33 "Sister Butterflies" -- species of the genus Adelpha -- are listed at the Mariposas Mexicanas Website for Mexico, and some of those species are represented by more than one subspecies. No wonder I find brown, white-barred, orange-splotched butterflies at so many stops. The genus Adelpha seems to have discovered a winning survival strategy, and has been rewarded with an enormous distribution that currently is radiating into many niches, subspeciating as it goes.
If only a handful of butterfly species survive the current mass extinction taking place because of human activity, it might be a good bet that an Adelpha species will be among them.