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The animal on the cover of Foundations for Analytics with Python is an oleander moth caterpillar (Syntomeida epilais).

Oleander caterpillars are orange with tufts of black hairs; they largely feed on oleander, an evergreen shrub that is the most poisonous commonly grown garden plant. The caterpillar is immune to the plant’s poison and by ingesting it, becomes toxic to any bird or mammal that tries to eat it. When the oleander was introduced to Florida by the Spanish in the 17th century, the moth already existed in Florida using a native vine as its host plant, but as oleander became more available, the moth adapted to the new plant as its host to such an extent that it became known as the oleander moth.

The adult oleander moth is spectacular: the body and wings are iridescent blue with small white dots, and the abdomen is bright red at its tip. These moths are active during daylight hours, slow-flying, and imitate the shape of wasps. Female moths perch on oleander foliage and emit an ultrasonic acoustic signal that attracts male moths from great distances. When male and female moths are within a few meters of each other, they begin a courtship duet of acoustic calls that continues until mating occurs two or three hours before dawn. Once mated, female moths oviposit on the undersides of the leaves of oleander plants. Egg masses can contain from 12 to 75 eggs. Once hatched, the larvae gregariously feed on the plant tissue between the major and minor leaf veins until the shoot is a brown skeleton. This defoliation does not kill the plant but it does leave it susceptible to other pests.

Many of the animals on O’Reilly covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world. To learn more about how you can help, go to animals.oreilly.com.

The cover image is from Wood’s Illustrated Natural History. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.