Hemeroplanes triptolemus Cramer 1779
Larval morphology and behavior:
When distressed the larvae of this species flips itself over onto its underside and while hanging onto its last pair of prolegs, inflates its thoracic region, causing it to resemble a viper.
Distribution:
Collected in Heredia Province, Costa Rica.
Foodplant Associations:
Solonaceae: Solanum adhaerens
This information is based an ongoing project dedicated to the inventory and dissemination of information on lepidopteran larvae, their host plants, and their parasitoids in a Costa Rican tropical wet forest and an Ecuadorian montane cloud forest.
N=2 rearings as of 2012, both eclosed.