This week's Atrophaneura, now generally called Pachliopta schadenbergi, is an endangered species. Most of what's been published online about it are lists of endangered species.
This male, typical of the subspecies micholitzi, has been quietly fading in a French museum for twenty years. When living, his pale pink spots might have been redder. The female is a little larger than the male--not a lot. The museum's pair's wingspans measured 74 mm for the male, 75 mm for the female. The easiest way to recognize the male, even spread out as a museum specimen, is by the little scent folds on the inside of his hind wings.
Always rare, schadenbergi (and its subspecies micholitzi) were only identified as a species in 1891. The fad for naming butterflies in this genus after characters in literature had passed; the species and its subspecies were named prosaically after contemporary people. The first authoritative article about these butterflies that's been published online is in German. Funet gives a link for it; if you can read German you might want to see whether your browser does better at following the link than mine did.
The first English description, also provided by Funet, is terse:
"
P. schadeubergi Semper, forma typ. \_S , ?].
Hindwings shaped as in aristolochiae Fabr. ; with the submarginal spots rounded and well marked on the upper- and underside, the anterior ones white, the posterior ones red; without discal markings.
Hah. X.^V. Luzon and Babuyanes (ace. to Semijer, I.e.) (3 c?, 2 ?).
(6): P. schadenbergi micholitzi Semper [J, ?].
Papiliti {.Uenelakle.'i) sdiadtiihcnji var. la'fJtoViV.i SuiuptT, /.<■. p. 269. sub n. 393. t. 44. f. 2((^): t. 45. f. 6 ( ? ) (1891) (N.E. Luzon).
Differs from the typical form in the spots of the hindwings being all white, or creamy white; the forewings are less white behind the cell.
Hub. N.E. Luzon (ace. to Semper) (1 J).
As the dry-season specimens of P. aristolochiae kotzebuea Eschsch. are sometimes very similar to the present species, and as further there are no differences between the two insects besides jiattern, F believe that schadenbergi will turn out to be the northern form of kotzebuea; but this is only a supposition.
"
Of the many Philippine islands, schadenbergi was found only on Luzon and the Babuyan group, only in its season, and only in some types of woods. It was able to survive when some forests were reduced to "grassland." Its food plant is not known, so whether it lives on grassland or only forages there, while living in woods, is unclear. It is sometimes found in the same places as kotzebuea and does not noticeably crossbreed with kotzebuea, although the two species look alike. In schadenbergi the typical Atrophaneura black-white-grey pattern appears predominantly white.
Its season turns out to be almost year-round; the season the early writers had in mind was probably April, still the peak season for sightings, but the butterflies have been seen in different places between February and November.
Nobody can state certanly how long this butterfly lives, what it eats, how many generations per year it has (almost certainly more than one), or what it looks like at any stage before it flies. As a result, although people have wanted to save the species for a long time, plans for doing so seem to be limited to "Stop cutting down forests." Then the argument is raised that nobody knows for sure that this butterfly needs trees to survive. Not one of the high-flying species, it may survive without trees, but its numbers drop when humans move into its habitat..There are wild creatures that react badly to humans in et per se--something about our breath seems toxic to them--but schadenbergi seems to be threatened more specifically by human "agriculture."
Meaning that, if humans could slow down population growth, practice less intensive methods of agriculture--keeping inedible plants as borders and ground covers, not spraying poisons, not overfarming until they leave "bald mountains as far as the eye can see" (S. Yamaguchi's lament on a visit to China)--people might be able to coexist with these pretty butterflies as easily as people in Virginia coexist with our Tiger Swallowtails? We don't know.
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