| Pieriballia | |
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| Pieriballia viardi viardi from Oxchuc, Chiapas, Mexico | |
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| Genus: | Pieriballia Klots, 1933 |
| Species: | P. viardi |
| Binomial name | |
| Pieriballia viardi | |
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Pieriballia is a genus of butterflies in the family Pieridae. It consists of only one species, Pieriballia viardi, the painted white or viardi white. It is found from Mexico to Bolivia and Paraguay. [2] Strays can be found in southern Texas in the United States. [3] The habitat consists of rainforests and transitional cloud forests. [2]
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers, and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, which was about 56 million years ago.
The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America. Most pierid butterflies are white, yellow, or orange in coloration, often with black spots. The pigments that give the distinct coloring to these butterflies are derived from waste products in the body and are a characteristic of this family.
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost 2,000,000 square kilometers (770,000 sq mi), the nation is the fourth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent state in the world. With an estimated population of over 129 million people, Mexico is the tenth most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, while being the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states plus Mexico City (CDMX), which is the capital city and its most populous city. Other metropolises in the country include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, and León.
The wingspan is about 57 mm (2.2 in).
The larvae feed on Capparis pseudocacao .
