Butterfly of the Week: Short-Lined Kite

Tennessee's official butterfly emblem, the Zebra Swallowtail, looks strange, exotic, unique among North American butterflies. There are actually several species that resemble it--the Kite Swallowtails. The other Kites are found in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. This week, we consider Eurytides agesilaus, the Short-Lined Kite.

Photo from lepidigi.net.

Eurytides is Greek for "wide form or shape," where "wide" was understood to mean mean a different shape from the "long" wings of another butterfly family. In the tradition of naming Swallowtails after heroes of ancient literature, Agesilaus was a King of Sparta who won two wars and lost one. 

"Short-lined" describes the butterflies' color pattern, with short black lines crossing the pale wings. 

This species has gone through a few names. As a Swallowtail it was first called Papilio agesilaus. Another name for the genus was Protographium. Some of the subspecies have also been identified as separate species. An early description of something Hewitson described a distinct species he called Papilio conon, which he said was different from agesilaus, but other naturalists didn't think its differences even qualified it to be counted as a subspecies. . 

Several Greek men's names, meaning "(whatever) of the people, the tribe, the nation," end in "laus" and were given to what were described as species with resemblances to agesilaus; Three of those species are now recognized as subspecies of agesilaus. 

Their wingspan is typically about three inches. Males and females look pretty much alike. Females tend to have bigger white spots on the underside of the hind wings than males do, but, as with other gender differences between Swallowtails, this rule is not always reliable; as we've seen, female Swallowtails tend to look different from males, except for the individuals that don't.

They are found in Mexico and several parts of Central and South America. They are not believed to be endangered. 

Seven subspecies are recognized. The "nominate" subspecies, E. agesilaus agesilaus, lives in Colombia and Venezuela. 

E.a. eimeri, found in Costa Rica, Panama, and western Colombia, has a transparent band on each forewing. 

E.a. fortis, native to Mexico, has wider black bands, and E.a. neosilaus, found in Mexico and Central America, has narrower ones.

Photo of fortis by Morthoblue.

Photo of neosilaus by Sandradennis in Mexico. 

E.a. autosilaus has a black band "divided" by a ale streak on each wing. It is found near the Caribbean coast, in Venezuela, Brazil, and south into Peru.

Photo of autosilaus by Ombeline_Sculfort in French Guyana. 

E.a. montanum is found in Peru, while E.a. viridis is found in Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay.

Photo of viridis by Salvador Mazza.

They can be gregarious, forming large flocks, as documented by Huatulco in Mexico: 

Photo by Huatulco at Biodiversity4All.com. This flock behavior is observed in several Swallowtail species. What seems to be going on in this behavior, which is described generally as "lekking" or more Swallowtail-specifically as "puddling," is that male butterflies emerge from their pupal shell a few days before they're ready to mate. They spend these days hanging out with other males, drinking water--often polluted water, by choice, since the mineral salts found in brackish or polluted water are what they need to help them mature. Female butterflies lack the taste for polluted water, and also tend to be ready to mate as soon as they unfold their wings, but they are likely to have to wait for the males to grow up. So the puddle becomes a lek--a site where unmated male animals gather, sometimes fighting for status, sometimes just hanging out, and an occasional female moves to the edge of the group and watches what the males are doing. Eventually one or more of the males will feel ready to leave the lek and wander off in the company of a female spectator. Female butterflies in these species are primarily pollinators who sip flower nectar, while males are primarily composters who sip mineral-rich water--although males sip nectar too, and females sip usually cleaner water. Females need mineral salts too, but they usually get their minerals from the male during mating. 

Photo by Francofran. Both males and females sip clean water. . 

Human sweat contains mineral salts. It's not unusual for male butterflies who like polluted puddles to perch on a human and slurp the salt off our skin. 

Photo by Marcoantonio23. 

Adult butterflies are easy to find and photograph. Everyone seems to have a picture of agesilaus puddling. About the earlier stages of heir lives, nothing seems to have been written. South American sources say the host plant is Rollinia emarginata but show no photos of eggs, caterpillars, or pupae.