This week we consider a butterfly species that seems very confusable. The butterflies themselves don't seem to be as confused as the scientists who write about them. Atrophaneura luchti is a rare species found only in Java, or else it's a subspecies of A. priapus. It is endangered, or at least threatened, or else it is not.
Museum specimen from gbif.org.
Even the science about this butterfly seems to be driven by unscientific greed. People who want not to have to worry about protecting it want it to be a subspecies that could be bred out from the main species again if it did vanish; people who want to conserve wilderness areas want luchti to be a distinct species.
Another bit of confusion about this species is that, although it clearly seems to belong to the Red-Bodied Swallowtail group, it does not actually have "swallowtails" on its hind wings.
Then there's the off-putting confusion of those who want to consider luchti rare and endangered in order to collect money for a dead body they happen to own. The position of this web site is that we should never pay for dead butterfly bodies or parts. If you have scientifically determined that there is a need to analyze the bodies chemically, go to Java, find some living butterflies, and wait. They don't live long so, within the vacation time of a teacher at most universities, you will come by some dead bodies honestly, and meanwhile you should be collecting all sorts of pictures and stories that will interest everyone back at school. If you just want to look at the pretty wings, the way we do that nowadays is with digital photos, which are easy to find. This page has links to more than it has room to show.
The IUCN Red Book states the situation clearly on pages 254-255 (which display as pages 266-267 in the online PDF version). Atrophaneura luchti and A. priapus are good-sized butterflies, with the black wing veins and dark, black fading to light greenish grey, wing surface between the veins typical of the Atrophaneura group, wingspans typically 6 cm (more than 2 inches) with some individuals up to 9 cm (more than 3 inches), and spots forming deep borders around the rounded scallop-edged hind wings. Found in different parts of Java, they look very much alike except that luchti have brighter red bodies and priapus tend to fade to yellow while living. They don't crossbreed naturally; whether they could be crossbred with human interference is unknown. As might be guessed from the names--Priapus was a mythological character, Lucht lived more recently--priapus was documented first (1836), luchti only in the twentieth century (1935). A. luchti live in a volcanic mountain area with the lowest human population in the country.
A nature preserve was planned to protect A. luchti; some argue that as a mere subspecies luchti may not deserve preservation. Exactly what the butterflies eat, or how vulnerable they might be to any human encroachment on their small territory, is not known. Certainly they are rare, but their small population seems to be stable at the moment.
The butterflies have certainly attracted attention in some countries. They're featured on a collectible postage stamp:
A. priapus is apparently larger, with wingspans said to be 11 to 14 cm (4 to 5 inches), besides having all of its red color typically faded to yellow or white. Different shapes of the pale borders or spots on the hind wing vary among individuals, and males' hind wings are lined with an extra fold of skin from which scent can be released in flight, helping other butterflies recognize their species identity. We'll consider priapus in more detail in a few weeks.
Photo donated to Wikipedia By Notafly - self-made Own photograph Studio Nikon, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4012537
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