Aphrissa orbis
Encyclopedia
Aphrissa orbis, the Orbed Sulphur, is a butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 in the Pieridae
Pieridae
The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing approximately 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and Asia. Most pierid butterflies are white, yellow or orange in coloration, often with black spots...

 family. It is native to Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...

 and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 but is a very rare stray to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. The habitat consists of tropical moist forests above 500 meters.

The wingspan
Wingspan
The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 63 millimetre. The upper surface of the male forewings is pale lemon yellow with a large orange patch on the basal third. The female upper surface is deep ochre, the underside of the hindwing with a large brown patch. There are multiple generations per year on Cuba and Hispaniola. They feed on flower nectar of various flowers, including Ageratum conyzoides
Ageratum conyzoides
Ageratum conyzoides is native to Tropical America, especially Brazil. Herb 0.5–1 m...

, Antigonon leptotus and Hibiscus
Hibiscus
Hibiscus is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is quite large, containing several hundred species that are native to warm-temperate, subtropical and tropical regions throughout the world...

species.

The larvae feed on Poinciana pulcherrima.

Subspecies

The following subspecies are recognised:
  • Aphrissa orbis orbis (Cuba)
  • Aphrissa orbis browni (Munroe, 1947) (Haiti)
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