Last week's butterfly was one of the least known Graphiums; this week's has been called the most familiar Graphium in southern Asia and Australia. They don't look alike, but are close enough to deceive the uninformed. (That is: if people who try to buy Graphium sandawanum bodies online, which is illegal, get anything that remotely resembles G. sandawanum, they are likely to get G. sarpedon.) The Blue Triangle or Common Bluebottle is well known from Australia to India and on the islands in between. If you have limited memory, this post may crash your browser due to its length and number of pictures.
This popular butterfly's genome has been mapped--in the US, where it doesn't live.
Photo by Sarab Seth. As in many Swallowtail species, the males crave mineral salts and gather on wet sand to sip brackish water. Some males are true composters who also drink the liquids from fresh dung and carrion; most of this species get adequate minerals from seawater on beaches. Generous quantities of minerals in their diet prepare them to mate, during which process the male transfers minerals to the female, who absorbs them from contact with the male and so normally gets all the minerals she needs without having to drink anything but sweet nectar and clear water. Males "eat" nectar and drink clear water too.
Photo by SL_Liew, March, Singapore. They'll hang out with other
Graphiums...
...or with smaller species; they're not snobs. Photo by Geechartier, November, Cambodia.
This Indian video, though short, seems to pack a solid message about the butterfly's status. Even a butterfly that is "in the top position" on lists of butterflies has an ambivalent status in some Indian and Asian cultures. Butterflies can be seen as souls that deserved to come back as composter animals and be eaten by birds. This butterfly is clearly a composter, an attendant to the cow, who is seen as the embodiment of giving. The butterfly may not yet have become an admirable soul, yet it has its place in the scheme of things.
Like many Swallowtail species this one gets its scientific name from a character, or several characters, in literature. The name seems to have meant "one in the top position" and been given as a title before it was used as a name. Apparently one Sarpedon was a defeated contender for the throne of Crete. He may or may not be the same one who, according to another story, lost a fight with another warrior over a teenaged boy with whom both men were infatuated. Probably a different Sarpedon was a warrior prince in the Iliad, where he's called the son of Zeus. Other sources say the one who fought in the Trojan War was a grandson of the one who was a son of Zeus. Greek and Roman Pagans sometimes used this kind of phrase as a metaphor, describing any man with some outstanding quality. (When the Roman soldier observed that Jesus "was the son of a god" he was not confessing that he'd converted to Judaism or Christianity--yet; he probably meant what a person of Irish descent would have called "a man you don't meet every day.") Any of these legendary men may have been worshipped as a god, though his name came from a title given to local deities and their temples; there were temples of Apollo Sarpedonios and Artemis Sarpedonia.
Though butterflies are hardly warriors, Graphium sarpedon can fairly be placed "in the top position" on several lists of butterfly species. Most widespread. Strongest survivor. Most widely loved. Most often photographed at social media sites. Most tolerated by humans even though, at all stages of life, it may feed on plants humans cultivate.
As an index of its popularity we find, just for example, that although it's not found in French-speaking countries it has a French name, le voilier bleu.
This butterfly can legally be killed and sold as a collector's item, or even a decorative item preserved in resin, and it is. Commercial links for Graphium sarpedon also show it featuring in posters and even jigsaw puzzles. It has been celebrated on postage stamps:
At the time of writing, about a month before publication, this unseparated pair of stamps was up for sale on Ebay (US$8.89). The link, probably no longer working, was
https://www.ebay.com/itm/375997635851 .
Perhaps the most appealing commercial exploitation of this butterfly that I found was that it's featured in a bird-oriented infomercial article about a series of cameras that are being advertised:
Photo by Libor Vaicenbacher, zooming in on a normal image of
Graphium sarpedon for the article:
From the butterflies' point of view, the most ominous potential exploitation was the hint that their peculiar blue-green pigment might be used in chemical tests for counterfeit money:
Matdona0 discovered, while chasing a Graphium sarpedon for this video, that butterfly chasing can be a hazardous sport. Well, yes...as we've discussed earlier, the multicaudate Bhutanitis swallowtails of the Himalayas are said to have "blood on their wings" because people chasing them fell down cliffs... Humans are not built to chase butterflies. We are built to psych them out. We learn where to find the ones we want to photograph. We settle, however reluctantly, for pictures of male butterflies at their puddle parties until someone finds a way to document the life cycle in a garden.
Many subspecies and a few variant forms have been recognized:
Graphium sarpedon adonarensis
Adonara and a few other small islands. This subspecies has only recently been recognized, has not yet been recognized by all sources, and is little known. Could you find Adonara on a map? I couldn't either, but people live there, so let's learn something. Adonara is one of three small islands east of Flores, in Indonesia, that are sometimes called the Solor Archipelago (Solor is the southernmost of these islands and Lembata is the other one). Adonara is a volcanic island whose central volcano is still considered active. Though it used to be nicknamed the Island of Murderers, it now welcomes tourists. According to NASA you can see Adonara and its volcano, Ile Boleng, from space. Both the indigenous people and the indigenous Graphium sarpedon consider themselves just noticeably different from the rest of their species.
Graphium sarpedon agusyantoei
Sumatra island. Only one source mentioned in passing that this subspecies name exists. It sounds like a local place name.
Graphium sarpedon cellamaculosa
India. "Graphium sarpedon with a spot in the cell." Found often enough to be named, but believed to be an aberrant form rather than a true subspecies, this butterfly has a small white spot in the dark area toward the foremost edge of the fore wing. Discussed in a short paper that's been published online as a free PDF:
Graphium sarpedon choredon
Eastern Australia. Also listed as
G. anthedon choredon and as
Graphium choredon, a separate species. The name may mean "separate" and refer to the butterflies' separating themselves from the other
Graphiums they resemble. Australians include them as Blue Triangles. This web site considered them separately at
https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2024/12/butterfly-of-week-blue-triangle.html/. Rothschild said that the difference is that
choredon have broader fore wings and shorter hind wings than
sarpedon but gave no firm rule for measuring the proportions and classifying an individual butterfly as one species or the other.
Graphium sarpedon connectens
China, Taiwan. The name means "connecting, linking, joining together" in Latin. In this video by David Tai, some connectens share a puddle with Graphium doson postianus:
Photo by Hsburgman, October, Taiwan.
Graphium sarpedon colus
Palawan and Balabac islands in the Philippines.
Graphium/Papilio sarpedon dodingensis
Northern Molucca islands. Rothschild said it was distinguished by having a narrower bluish band across the upper wings and an extra red spot on the hind wings. Nobody else seems to have noticed this. Or they may have identified it with Graphium milon and/or monticolus as distinct species.
Graphium sarpedon impar
The island of New Georgia in the Solomons. Rothschild and some other sources accept this as a subspecies, resembling isander but always having an extra white spot and usually having more red on its hind wings.
Graphium sarpedon imparilis
New Britain and a few other small islands. Rothschild included this one as a subspecies; few later sources have done. Its dark sections are darker than other subspecies and it is more likely to have a white or blue-green spot in one, but only one, of three positions, which Rothschild described in
https://archive.org/details/novitateszoologi02lond/page/443/mode/1up . All recognizable specimens of this color pattern that Rothschild saw were male.
Graphium sarpedon isander
Guadalcanal and other islands. The name is derived from Greek isos, "equal," and ander, "man," and generally translated as "defender, liberator," one who restores the equal status of an oppressed group of people. In Greek it appears as a short form of Alexander and commemorates one of the greatest warlords in human history. Hailing Alexander as a liberator from a previous monarch nobody liked is standard practice for defeated nations, but the fact really was that Alexander was too busy proving he could defeat other warlords to hang around oppressing private citizens. He did very little actual ruling. So in a sense he really did liberate and equalize people...and he was loved.
Nobody seems to have photographed this subspecies. Rothschild described its distinguishing feature as having the spots of light color slightly out of line, rather than blending together to form a continuous even band across fore and hind wings. Some individuals also have spots at the outer edges of the fore wings, as well as the hind wings.
Graphium sarpedon islander
Vietnam. Since Vietnam's territory does not include and has not historically included significant islands, this is probably a misreading of isander. The butterflies are found on little Con Son island (among other subspecies); they are also found on the mainland. Some sources use isander and islander as synonyms. However, some respectable sources favor islander as the spelling. See isander.
Some lovely, clear photos of Graphium sarpedon in Vietnam are at
Graphium sarpedon jugans / kawaimitsuoi
Sumba and perhaps nearby small islands. Rothschild recognized this rare, smaller butterfly as smaller, with shorter hind wings and a slightly different tail end, and more likely to have an extra greenish spot on the fore wings, than nearby sarpedon. Since his time most writers seem to have ignored this rarity or considered it as an aberrant form, but some persist in recognizing it, sometimes as a whole separate species since the different shape of the tail end would at least encourage individuals to mate with one another rather than breeding back into sarpedon. It is sometimes listed as Graphium jugans kawaimitsuoi.
Graphium sarpedon luctatius
Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Nepal, Sikkim, Myanmar, Yunnan, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, sometimes even Australia. Most of Inaturalist's photos of this species come from Singapore. The name may be a mistake for Lucretius or Lutatius, both of which were the names of real people in Roman history. Several photos in this article show G.s. luctatius but you might also enjoy watching a short video by Paul Hampton of a lone male luctatius flitting and sipping at wet sand, available as a sort of promotion for Shutterstock:
Aberrant individuals in Thailand show both albinism and failure to develop the blue patches at all:
Graphium sarpedon lycianus
This may be an older name; no information about where the subspecies was found appeared at the site where the name was listed. The name plays on words. Some of the Greek mythological characters called Sarpedon lived, at least for part of their lives, in a place called Lycia.
Graphium sarpedon messogis
Indonesia, Solomon Islands, New Guinea. In Greek literature Messogis was a place.
Graphium sarpedon milon
Photo by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sanchez for Wikimedia Commons.
Males in this species, or group of species, have "scent folds" of long hairs that hold the insects' special scent. When courting females they flap about with their wings spread wide and these hairs forming a sort of halo behind them, as documented in the photo by Garry Sankowsky of Queensland, at
The breeze carries the male's scent to the female. Humans describe it as vaguely "unpleasant," though not so overpowering that everyone who watches these butterflies mentions having noticed a scent, but presumably to the female of the species it smells tolerable. At least she knows whether the creatire flapping around her is the right kind of butterfly to ensure the optimal hatch rate for her eggs. Female Swallowtails usually seem to be in a hurry to get their eggs ripened and laid as fast as possible--they could usually stand to lose a few unflattering milligrams--so if the male is the right kind they'll probably mate.
Graphium sarpedon monticolus
Or G. anthedon monticolus, or just Graphium monticolus. Also Sulawesi and other islands, Indonesia's Lore Lindu park. The name is also found as monticola or monticolum. It means "of the little hills"; this butterfly frequents low hills, while milon favors flat land and beaches. For a butterfly that's easily found on islands with relatively high human populations, this one is remarkably obscure. Almost nothing is known about its habits or life cycle, or whether it's a true species, a subspecies, or a variant population.
Graphium sarpedon morius
Japan. In this case morius probably refers to a place name such as Mori-machi or the Mori Museum.
Photo by Li17kw, May, Japan.
Graphium sarpedon nipponum
Japan. Nipponum means "from Japan." Some authors spell the subspecies name nipponus, a quibble about Latin grammar, or nipporum, a mistake.
Photo by Norio_Nomura, September, Japan.
Graphium sarpedon pagus
Philippines. Pagus means "rural, of the fields."
Photo by Astronorm, September, Baguio (Philippines).
Graphium sarpedon parsedon
Sunda islands. Rothschild described this subspecies as having the band of color as broad as G.s. sarpedon and the tails even longer than G.s. teredon. He later wrote that he no longer thought it was a distinct subspecies, but just a freshly emerged sarpedon whose hind wings had not fully expanded. Apparently the little points among the scallops at the corners of the hind wings expand first and the rest of the wings fill in later as the butterflies unfold their new wings.
Graphium sarpedon phyris
Sipora and Siberut. Described only by Jordan, 1937. He said it had narrower and more bluish-colored green bands above and bigger red spots below. Subsequent writers seem to have either ignored this rare variation or deemed it insignificant.
Graphium sarpedon punctata
India. "Graphium sarpedon with a point or mark." This one has a small black spot in the pale area of the forewing. It's also common enough to be named but not common enough to be considered a subspecies; it's just a variant form. Discussed at
Graphium sarpedon rufocellularis
"Graphium sarpedon with a red cell." Fruhstorfer described this variation only in German and didn't say where he'd found it. More recent writers seem to have ignored it.
Graphium sarpedon rufofervidus
Nias island. Described only by Fruhstorfer and only in German. "Graphium sarpedon warm red."
Graphium sarpedon sarpedon
India, SriLanka.
Photo by Sandipoutsider for Wikipedia.
Graphium sarpedon sarpedonides
Japan, but sources that list this name list it with a question mark, as if uncertain whether it is still used or ought to be. Sarpedonides means "Sarpedon's son."
Graphium sarpedon semifasciatus
China. The name means "half-banded." The distinguishing feature is that the band of light color is short or missing on the hind wings. They looked to the old naturalists like a different species--except that they mix freely with other sarpedon.
Graphium sarpedon sirkari
Described and proposed as a subspecies only in 2013. Sirkari presumably means "from Sirkar," but the description I saw did not specify a location.
Graphium sarpedon teredon
India, Sri Lanka. In ancient literature Teredon was a place, thought to be in what became Kuwait. Some list Graphium teredon as a separate species. Rothschild describes its distinction as consisting of having a narrower band of blue-green, with the foremost spot on the fore wings sometimes missing and sometimes replaced by a stray white spot at the front of the fore wings. It also comes closer than other closely related species and subspecies do to having real tails on its hind wings.
Photo by Vinayaraj for Wikipedia.
Graphium sarpedon timorensis
Timor and Wetter island. Rothschild described this one as having different proportions of spots on the fore wings, the front spots being bigger and the ones further back narrower, producing more of an even stripe. It also comes close to having real "swallow tails." The spots on the underwings are also slightly different, and, finally, Rothschild said, the shape of the last segment on the body is different. Mercifully for readers, his editors wouldn't give him space for a drawing of the butterfly's back end.
Graphium sarpedon toxopei
Yet another name that appears on one list with no explanation of where the subspecies is found or when or why it was named.
Graphium sarpedon wetterensis
Indonesia and other islands, including Wetter Island.
Finally, Funet.fi, the source on which I usually rely to make sense of subspecies names, lists several subspecies names that were used when the species was called Papilio sarpedon. Matsumura, writing in 1929, gave Japanese names to some variant forms for which other writers have ignored either the Japanese subspecies names or the whole pattern of variation. Fruhstorfer used subspecies names corycus, melas, and temnus, which have also been generally ignored.
Since this species seems unlikely to be endangered, it's been studied--in the sense of dissected--by many researchers for many reasons. Its proportionately huge eyes, for instance, are believed to contain fifteen different kinds of photoreceptor cells analogous to the three kinds of "cone" cells in most human eyes. It probably sees a lot of things humans either don't see, or don't see as different from one another. Variations in the iridescence and reflectivity of its wings may have meaning for this butterfly that humans have no way to recognize. It seems to be able to see ultraviolet, violet, three shades of blue, blue-green, four shades of green, and five shades of red as primary colors. Since most humans can see secondary colors well enough for practical purposes, why do the butterflies need to see them as primary colors? Nature can be extravagant. Some think the butterflies' extra color receptors see movement or shading better than human eyes do, in the way that "tetrachromatic" eyes seem to work for a minority of humans, but humans really have no way to know.
The blue colors seen in most birds' and butterflies' wings are iridescent effects; the color in Blue Triangles' wings is variable because of iridescent effects, but the wings always look blue because they contain a blue pigment called sarpedobilin. The pigmented wing scales on the upper wing surface are described, by those who've examined them under a microscope, as "bristles" and the smoother, more reflective, clear scales directly below them are described as "glassy."
The National Institute of Health stores butterfly research on the chance that some biochemical found in a butterfly will be used in medicine, and in fact Graphium sarpedon is used to make some homeopathic remedies. The best thing that can be said for most homeopathic remedies is that, when used in proper homeopathic doses, they're not known to be harmful, and this apparently seems to be the case with remedies derived from Graphium sarpedon. Swallowtail butterflies are toxic if consumed internally but this species seems to be less toxic than the ones that live on Aristolochia vines.
They like a variety of white, pink, red, yellow, orange, and even bright blue-violet flowers, all with rather small shallow blossoms because, as butterflies go, they have relatively short tongues.
Photo by Plaintiger, May, Singapore.
Some of them seem to be attracted to anything bright blue or blue-green.
Photo by Davis1003, January, Taiwan. When they are chased around their favorite forests, when the butterflies naturally prefer to fly about the level of trees' blossoms anyway, these butterflies seem almost impossible to photograph. Those who snap unusual photos let the butterflies come to them.
These Swallowtails are known for their "skipping" flight. Their relatively fubsy faces, with short knobbed antennae, short tongues, and big eyes, are also reminiscent of the lowly, amusing Skipper butterfly family.
Males and females may look alike (at least to humans), except that young females are full of eggs, or females may be just slightly paler. Wingspans vary from 3 to 4 inches--a little bigger than the largest butterflies found in most of the United States, not a lot, not necessarily bigger than our Monarchs, Dianas, or Giant Swallowtails. Females' wings tend to span about a quarter-inch wider than males' but subspecies, diet, and season also influence these butterflies' size.
The life cycle of this butterfly is tidily documented at
...but I have fair-use photos of each stage of its cycle, so why steer you off site?
Photo by Donnamd, July, Taiwan.
Photo by Bluebottle77, December, Singapore. This butterfly places her egg at the tip of the growing stalk where the caterpillar can hatch onto a fresh, tender leaf, though some other butterflies photographed at Inaturalist weren't so particular. Both males and females are attracted to the nectar of flowers on the plants their caterpillars can eat, but females are more strongly attracted to their host plants' aromatic leaves.
Photo by Creek_Chen, September, Taiwan.
Their favorite food plants are cinnamon trees (genus Cinnamomum); they also like Asian laurels (genus Litsea) and can eat several other plants and trees: Alseodaphne semecarpefolia, Polyalthia longifolia, Michelia doltospa, Miliusa tomentosa, Persea macrantha. In Singapore they are also said to eat Lindera lucida and Neolitsea zeylonica, and in Australia some species in the genus Clerodendrum. Like the other Swallowtails they never become a real pest, but the caterpillars are ugly enough that some people consider them a nuisance. In fact, in Brisbane one species of Cinnamomum is considered a non-native weed, and if anything, more sophisticated gardeners and farmers may wish Graphium sarpedon would deviate from the norm for Swallowtails and kill its host plant. (It doesn't.)
Additional food plants sometimes used by both caterpillars and adults are listed at
Early stage caterpillars are little dark brown things with harmless stiff bristles that have to make them harder for predators to swallow. (Hatchlings are often lighter brown, darkening as they grow.) They are somewhat slug-shaped and are conspicuously "sluggish" at all stages.
Photo by Caligin, October, Singapore. The photo is blurry because at this stage the caterpillar is about a quarter-inch long.
Photo by Takuyatamura, May, Japan. A brown or black color may be better camouflage than green on the new leaves the baby caterpillar eats.
Photo by Nbasargin, December, Singapore. (A different year. Tropical caterpillars change skins in less than a week.) Plenty of melanin left in his skin but, at this picklelike phase, the chlorophyll in his diet is starting to show.
Photo by Tiwane, January, Singapore. Now the caterpillar is well camouflaged.
Photo by Geechartier, June, Cambodia. Predators may think any of four pairs of spots on the forward section are eyes. The working eyes are on the underside, facing the leaf. In its last caterpillar skin, with the bristles replaced by dots of color, the insect may be almost two inches long.
Photo by Buxiaotiao, October, China. All known Swallowtail caterpillars have a humped back that stores a damp, fleshy, erectile appendage called the osmeterium, or stink horns. Some species pop out their "horns" easily, some only when they feel very stressed. This one is rolling sidewise, imitating a snake whose forked "tongue" is sensing the best place to bite. It has no real defense except for being unpalatable and indigestible to most other animals; it's bluffing. Fortunately, so was Buxiaotiao, who posted this photo to Inaturalist as part of a series showing that person was rearing the caterpillar as a science project.
Butterfly pupae don't move much but they do wriggle out of their abandoned caterpillar skins. Photo by Bobohog, November, China.
Photo by Klearad, August, Singapore. The pupa is stuck to the underside of the leaf.
Photo by Ziki_Eschsbp, October, Malaysia.
Photo by Zii_Eschsbp, October, Malaysia. The whole process from egg to adult takes about a month, 28 to 32 days, and seems to be going on somewhere during every month of the year.
