This week's butterfly is the best known of the four species in the genus Bhutanitis, the Three-Tailed Swallowtails. "Discovered" to Englishmen by one R. Lidderdale, this high-altitude tropical Asian butterfly was officially named Bhutanitis lidderdalii, and nicknamed, in English, the Bhutan Glory.
Photo donated to Wikipedia by Balakrishnan Valappil.
Found at elevations between 5,000 and 9,000 feet, this butterfly's wingspan is usually about four inches. Males and females look alike. Usually blackish gray, with whitish pinstripes and a vivid representation of a miniature owl face on the back end, they can also look brown. The hind wings normally have a long "swallow tail" and two shorter ones.
This butterfly seems to feel safest when it's above other things. Its wings are paler grey, reflective and translucent, from below, so it's not easy to see from below. Rather than iridescing blue or pink, when the light strikes this one right it becomes a gleam of white light against the bright sky.
It flies high in the trees, is believed to feed on vines high in trees, and is more often found on ridges than in valleys. Like some other large butterflies, it is said to fly slowly, lazily, and erratically under most circumstances.
As in many Swallowtail species, males are attracted to mineral salts. They gather at puddles of relatively clean water, but are attracted to polluted water and decaying things that need composting. Females can afford cleaner and safer habits; they absorb their share of mineral salts by mating with males. They stay in the treetops, sipping flower nectar.
Photo donated to Ifoundbutterflies, copyright by Tarun Karmakar. Spreading out its wings helps a butterfly catch more sun and warm up enough to fly on a cool day, and also helps these male butterflies define their personal space. These butterflies deliberately tag each other, tapping wings, to start a chase that may define their relative social status or lead to mating.
Some Blogspots embed live videos, too. This one doesn't. Here's a link to a vertiginous video of one butterfly sipping nectar.
Still shot by Tandin Wangchuk.
How rare is it? It is not and probably never was common. Of the four subspecies now generally recognized, one is believed to be extinct. It is legally protected as a rare species in some of the countries where it is native. However, it is not currently believed to be an endangered species. Many other Swallowtails are in much greater danger.
Despite its rarity, people sell dead bodies, and Google has even sold "sponsorship" to a site that traffics in dead bodies of these butterflies. Nature lovers need to stand firm on this. Most butterflies leave their mortal remains to science just weeks after they first spread their wings. Bhutanitis is believed to fly for about two weeks. Still, we should not reward desperate students for "collecting" what just might be the last of a local population.
While admitting that "collection" of dead bodies may have caused the extinction of the Thai subspecies B.l. ocellatomaculata, the IUCN show reluctance to denounce this obsolete and unhygienic method of "collecting." This web site does not. Butterfly collectors want something pretty and distinctive to look at. Moldering carcasses, some of which didn't smell particularly nice even while living, are not pretty and distinctive. It is now possible to collect butterflies with digital photos that preserve the actual look, often the behavior, of the living butterfly in the moment of observation, and show some real skill or at least luck on the part of the photographer, and are not quickly decaying into dust, and don't attract either mold or little carrion-eating beetles into the building, and don't even have an odor. This has made it very hard to think of a valid reason for collecting dead bodies.
Meanwhile, who's actually paying to boost the carcass-collecting sites' placement on Google? The customer is. Serious collectors laugh at the customers who are being bilked:
Search engines should probably monetize themselves by fundraising drives in order to clear themselves of the ethical taint produced by accepting "sponsors," anyway.
It may be worth noting that, perhaps because this butterfly was not even known to the English-speaking world until 1868 and is hard to find, attempts to "collect" Bhutan Glories have been characterized throughout history by extraordinary bad luck. One early collecting party all died. One collector fell into a tiger trap; he survived, but the permanent injury he incurred was blamed for his death on another adventure. Some feel that this butterfly has blood on its wings. Butterflies are hardly to blame for the reckless things people do while trying to catch them, but if objects can be cursed by those who paid dearly to get them, any species of Bhutanitis has to be considered analogous to the Hope Diamond.
Then there's the phenomenon of fashion victims trying to paint their own eyelids to resemble the "eye" spots on this butterfly. How many people would recognize what the model is trying to do, and how many would just think she looks ill?
Big as they are, these butterflies are capable of mating on the wing.
Photo donated to Ifoundbutterflies, copyright by Joram Khopey.
Eggs are relatively smooth little round beads, without the conspicuous texture some Troidine eggs get from droplets of aristolochic acid stuck to the sides. Females don't hesitate to lay them in clusters.
Photo by Brojo Kumar Basumatary.
A few different species of vines in the genus--you'd never guess!--Aristolochia can be used as food plants. In some places different plants are favored by different seasonal generations, and the choice of food plant is said to have predictable effects on the looks of the different generations.
Caterpillars have been cage-reared but not well documented. Probably so far the definitive study of this species' life cycle is this article. It contains photos documenting that sibling caterpillars have discovered the benefit of feeding side by side, forming what looks like a solid patch of leaf damage rather than a small slow-moving animal, while they are small enough to munch on the same leaf. As they grow bigger they separate. They have the muddle of red, black, and white coloring, which blurs into purple or brown, and the very lumpy, "a bird already ate me and was it ever sorry" look in common with other caterpillars that eat Aristolochia.
Hatchling caterpillars are scrawny little things with comparatively enormous heads, but they soon develop into a more typical Swallowtail caterpillar shape, with the "humped back" or "shouldered" look.
The chrysalis is less irregular in shape than some other Aristolochia-eating Swallowtails', but still seems to be trying to look like a dead leaf, or perhaps a dead broken stem.
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