Ulysses Butterfly, Kuranda State Forest, Queensland, Australia

The Ulysses butterfly (Papilio ulysses), also known as the blue mountain butterfly, is a large Australian swallowtail. The Ulysses butterfly has a wingspan of about 14 cm (5.5 inches). It lives in northeastern Australia along the coast of Queensland. It inhabits tropical rainforest areas and suburban gardens. The Ulysses butterfly's favourite food plant is euodia (Melicope elleryana), a tree with clusters of small pink flowers growing straight out of the branches. The upperside the wings are an iridescent electric blue; the underside is a more subdued black and brown in colouration. The colours are produced by the microscopic structure of the scales.[1]
Ulysses butterfly at the Melbourne Zoo
Ulysses butterfly at the Melbourne Zoo

The female of the species differs from the male in that she has little crescents of blue in the black sections of her hind wings. When the butterfly is perched the intense blue of its wings is hidden, helping it to blend in with its surroundings. When in flight the butterfly can be seen hundreds of metres away as sudden bright blue flashes. This butterfly is used as an emblem for Queensland tourism.

Males are strongly attracted to blue objects which they mistake for females. Females favour small trees up to 2 metres tall to lay their eggs.

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

The Eastern tiger swallowtail, Papilio glaucus, is a large (12 cm wingspan) swallowtail butterfly. It is found in the Eastern United States, as far north as southern Vermont, and as far West as extreme Eastern Colorado. It flies from spring through fall, and most of the year in the southern portions of its range, where it may produce two or three broods a year. In the Appalachian region, it is replaced by the closely-related and only recently described Papilio appalachiensis, and in the north, it is replaced by the closely-related Papilio canadensis. These three species can be very difficult to distinguish, and were formerly all considered to be a single species.

Adult males are yellow, with four black "tiger stripes" on each fore wing. The trailing edges of the fore and hind wings are black which is broken with yellow spots. On the medial margin of the hind wing next to the abdomen there are small red and blue spots.

There are two morphs of adult females, a yellow and a dark one. The yellow morph is similar to the male, except that the hind wings have an area of blue between the black margin and the main yellow area. In the dark morph, most of the yellows area are replaced with a dark gray. A shadow of the "tiger stripes" can still be seen on the dark females. The dark form is more common in the Southern portions of the range, especially in areas also inhabited by the pipevine swallowtail, which it seems to mimic.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails often rest with their wings fully spread, particularly if the sun is out.

Female lays spherical green eggs on the top of leaves of host plants. After hatching, the caterpillars often eat the shell of their egg. The first instars are dark and mimic bird droppings. The larvae eat the leaves of a wide variety of trees and shrubs, including cottonwood, tulip tree, sweet bay, and cherry. Adults are strictly diurnal; they start to fly towards noon and by and by return to rest throughout the afternoon (Fullard & Napoleone 2001).

It is the state butterfly of Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina and Delaware.

Emerald Swallowtail

The Emerald Swallowtail (Papilio palinurus) is a butterfly found primarily in South East Asia. It is also referred to as Emerald Peacock or Green-banded Peacock Swallowtail

Pipevine Swallowtail

The Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly (Battus philenor) is a swallowtail butterfly which is found in North and Central America.

The butterfly ranges from southern Canada southwards across USA to Mexico, Tres Marias islands and onto Guatemala and Costa Rica.

In the United States, the butterfly is found in New England down to Florida, from Southern Ontario (Canada) to Nebraska, Texas, Arizona, California, Oregon and New Mexico.

The upper surface of the hind wings of the male butterfly has an iridescent metallic blue sheen. The hindwings also have a series of pale, arrow-head markings above and a single row of seven round orange spots, which never touch, set in an iridescent blue field below.

The forewings are dull blackish-brown.

After mating, females lay batches of eggs on the underside of the leaves of a host plant. The caterpillars feed in small groups when young, but become solitary when older. Chrysalis overwinters.

White Peacock Butterfly

White Peacock Butterfly (Anartia jatrophae) are very common in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as southern Texas and Florida. Small numbers can also be found in North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas.

White peacock butterflies are commonly found in warm, open, weedy areas such as fields or parks where water is abundant -usually in the form of a pond or stream. Adult butterflies are often seen along roadside ditches where host plants are abundant.

Males display a unique territorial behavior. Males stake out a territory, typically 15 meters in diameter, that contains larval host plants. Males perch in this area and aggressively protect it from other insects and other male white peacocks.

Papillons Hamel

Green Banded Peacock Butterfly _ Papilio Palinurus

The Common Banded Peacock (Papilio crino) is a species of swallowtail (Papilionidae) butterfly found in parts of South Asia, including India and Sri Lanka.

The Papilio crino esembles Papilio palinurus, but the male generally has, on the upperside of the outer half of the forewing, cottony or hairy scent-streaks similar to those in Papilio polyctor, only the streak in interspace 1 is always wanting. The other differences are seen in the upperwing.

* Upper forewing:
The discal transverse bluish-green band slightly sinuous, narrower, more curved and more distinctly decreasing in width towards the costal margin; in the female it is more sinuous than in the male.

* Upper hindwing:
The transverse bluish-green band is very variable in width but with its inner margin is much straighter than in P. polyctor; this band that in P. polyctor stops short of vein 7, is in the present form continued to the costal margin, it is however much and abruptly narrowed above vein 7; tornal ocellus claret-red with a large black centre inwardly edged with blue; the bright ochraceous subapical lunule of P. polyctor replaced by a dull whitish spot; the subterminal diffuse green lunules restricted to interspaces 2,3 and 4; the spatular apex of the tail with a small patch of bluish-green scales.

* Underside:
Dull pale brown to blackish brown irrorated with scattered yellowish scales, which, however, on the forewing are absent from a large triangular discal patch that lies between the dorsum, the median vein, vein 5 and a line of white lunules that crosses the wing in an outward curve from the upper third of the costa to just before the tornus; these white lunules are outwardly diffuse and merge gradually into the brown ground-colour. In the Hindwing, the tornal ocellus much as on the upperside; an obscure ill-defined highly arched postdiscal narrow whitish band from above the tornal ocellus to the costa, ends near apex of interspace 7 in a broad white lunule; beyond this a double subterminal row of somewhat straight ochreous-white lunules in the interspaces, each lunule of the inner row bordered outwardly with blue, this bordering very faint in many specimens. Cilia of both fore and hindwings brown alternated with white. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen dark brownish black; the head, thorax and abdomen above with a sprinkling of glittering green scales.

What A Delicate Butterfly!

Butterfly at the Butterfly Pavillion near Victoria BC

What they eat.

Butterflies love the sweet nectar in flowers. And as incredible as it sounds, a butterfly tastes with its feet! As soon as it lands on a flower, it uses its feet, called tarsi, to tell whether this is the flower it wants. If you tasted your food the way a butterfly does, you would have to put your toes in your dessert to sample it!

The Rounds of a Social Butterfly

Flying

Butterflies are very good fliers. They have two pairs of large wings covered with colorful, iridescent scales in overlapping rows. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are the only insects that have scaly wings. The wings are attached to the butterfly's thorax (mid-section). Veins support the delicate wings and nourish them with blood.

Butterflies can only fly if their body temperature is above 86 degrees. Butterflies sun themselves to warm up in cool weather. As butterflies age, the color of the wings fades and the wings become ragged.

The speed varies among butterfly species (the poisonous varieties are slower than non-poisonous varieties). The fastest butterflies (some skippers) can fly at about 30 mile per hour or faster. Slow flying butterflies fly about 5 mph.

Tiger Swallowtail

Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful butterflies which form the family Papilionidae. There are at least 550 species, and though the majority are tropical, members of the family are found on all continents except Antarctica. The family includes the largest butterflies in the world, the birdwing butterflies of Australia (genus Ornithoptera).

Swallowtails differ from all other butterflies in a number of anatomical traits. Most notably, their caterpillars possess a unique organ behind their heads, called the osmeterium. Normally hidden, this forked structure can be everted when the caterpillar is threatened, and emits smelly secretions containing terpenes. The adults are often tailed, giving the insect its name.