Nymphidium

Nymphidium is a genus in the butterfly family Riodinidae present only in the Neotropical realm.

Nymphidium
N. azanoides occidentalis Panama
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Riodinidae
Subfamily:	Riodininae
Genus:	Nymphidium Fabricius, 1807
Synonyms
Limnas Hübner, [1806] (suppressed) Peplia Hübner, [1819] Eulepis Billberg, 1820 Heliochlaena Hübner, 1821 Desmozona Boisduval, 1836 Tyanitis Doubleday, 1847 Tyanitis Westwood, 1851 Nymphopsis Reuter, 1896 (preocc. Haswell, 1865)

Some Nymphidium are obviously secondarily transformed by mimicry, otherwise the almost exclusive colours are brown and white either of which being now and then preponderant. The wings have a normal shape without indentations, tail appendages, lobing or coiling. The larva is shaped like a woodlouse, hunched, green, sometimes with a yellow lateral streak, the neck organ out of a transverse row of green spikes or bristles. It has a guard of ants. The pupa is green, fastened by a belt-like thread. The butterflies rest on the under surface of leaves and are chased up by beating the bushes, whereupon they fly like Geometridae for some paces, in order to hide themselves again. The swarming-time seems to be dawn, or the early morning, but the author came across them yet in the sunshine of the morning on blossoms. They are easily taken and fly low.[1]