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Luminary Oddities · Natural history & art
Hebomoia glaucippe
Lepidoptera / Pieridae
The great orange-tip has bright orange upper forewing tips and a finely mottled underside. Regional accounts document caper-family larval hosts, while chemical research detected a wing peptide previously identified in the cone snail Conus marmoreus.
Read the species account
In the Taiwanese form formosana, males have creamy-white upper wings with an orange-red forewing tip enclosed by a dark border. Females are yellower and have more extensive black markings. The underside has fine dark transverse mottling across the outer forewing and hindwing. [2]
The Florida Museum account gives a wingspan of 6.4–8.9 cm. [5]
The species occurs across South and Southeast Asia into southern Japan and China. Taiwanese records include evergreen broadleaf woodland at low and middle elevations. [2][3]
On Zamami in the Ryukyu Islands, adults occur around gullies and streams for much of the year, with a short winter interruption. Crateva formosensis is a local larval host. [6]
Observations of boholensis on Bohol describe green larvae with small coloured projections and distinctive head markings. Before pupation the body becomes paler; the developing wing region of the pupa has an orange area. The observed immature stages came from a garden at approximately 300 m elevation. [7]
A 2012 study detected glacontryphan-M in wing extracts from specimens collected in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. This peptide had previously been identified in the cone snail Conus marmoreus. The authors proposed that its location in the wings could contribute to predator defence. [4]
Bold contours define the wings while restrained internal lines retain the mottled underside. The orange tips, dark borders and pale wing fields remain separate colour regions. [2]
Keep a physical display out of direct sunlight and protect it from dust, moisture and pests. Handle the enclosure rather than the specimen. [10]
How do the two wing surfaces differ? Bright orange tips dominate the upper forewings, while the underside carries fine mottling resembling a dry leaf. [2][5]
Which peptide was found in the wings? Glacontryphan-M was detected in the 2012 study. The authors proposed a defensive role for the wing-localised peptide. [4]
Regional accounts document host plants, flight and immature stages. Bae and colleagues’ 2012 study provides the chemical evidence for glacontryphan-M in the wings. [2][3][4][6][7]
NCBI Taxonomy · Accessed 2026-10-09
National Taiwan Museum · Accessed 2026-10-09
Butterflies of India · Accessed 2026-10-09
Bae et al., PNAS, 2012 · Accessed 2026-10-09
Florida Museum of Natural History · Accessed 2026-10-09
Sources checked 2026-10-09. Illustrations · Luminary Oddities.
Return to the Entomological Atlas ↑Japan Tourism Agency · Accessed 2026-10-09
Badon and Burlace, News of the Lepidopterists’ Society, Spring 2021 · Accessed 2026-10-09
Chicago Botanic Garden · Accessed 2026-10-09
Nitin et al., Journal of Threatened Taxa, 2018 · Accessed 2026-10-09
Canadian Conservation Institute · Accessed 2026-10-09
