There's a lot of movement going on in the online documentation of the genus Eurytides, the attractive yet largely under-documented Kite Swallowtails. I feel a need to pause and make a list. Let's approach the Eurytides as we did the Atrophaneura genus, which was broken up and resorted in a more scientific, less controversial way: we'll discuss the species in as close as possible to their traditional alphabetical order in the genus Eurytides, acknowledging that some of them have been reassigned as we go. Scientists don't always agree on reassigning species to different genus names, and, even on the Internet, sources that used the older names when published aren't always updated. My goal is to include the information that's available at the time of writing.
The Eurytides species list:
agesilaus--discussed 3.18.24
anaxilaus--discussed 3.25.24
asius--discussed 4.1.24
bellerophon--discussed 4.8.24
callias--discussed 4.15.24
calliste--discussed 4.22.24
celadon--our featured butterfly today
Photo donated by XplorMor Intern to Butterflies And Moths Of North America.
...columbus--scheduled for 5.27.24
dioxippus--discussed 5.6.24
dolicaon--discussed 4.29.24
epidaus--discussed 5.13.24
iphitas
leucaspis
marcellinus
marcellus
oberthueri (?)
orabilis
philolaus
salvini
serville
thyastes
zonaria
Then there are the species now classified as Mimoides, some but not all of which were formerly classified as Eurytides:
ariarathes
euryleon
ilus
lysithous
microdamas
pausanias
phaon
protodamas
thymbraeus
xeniades
xynias
The Mimoides look different from the Kites, and were separated earlier. It seems reasonable to me to consider them as a separate genus.
The Eurytides appear out of order here because a list from which I was working has been updated It looks as if the number of scientists who classify several of these species as Protographium is increasing. Today let us consider Eurytides or Protographium celadon. At the time of writing, a search for this species will yield more results for the name Eurytides celadon, but some sites have completely updated all references so that they show only in a search for Protographium celadon.
"Celadon" in English is most often used to mean a soft shade of grayish green with a yellow undertone, which makes it seem like an odd choice of name for the Cuban Kite. Newly fledged Cuban Kites' wings are black with bright sky-blue stripes. Like all butterfly wings, they get their color from scales, which actually contain blue color, but the scales wear down quickly; older butterflies are dark drab with white to transparent stripes. Or spots, since the stripes break up on different sections of the wings.
The Swallowtail species were traditionally named for characters in literature. "Heroes" was the general theme, but it seems to have been interpreted rather broadly. In Latin literature Celadon was the name of an adversary someone killed in battle. The name came back to people's attention in the seventeenth century as the name of a character in a French roman, who distinguished himself by wearing pale green ribbons, which was how "celadon" became the name of a shade of green. Hippolyte Lucas, who named Eurytides celadon in a study in 1852, might have thought Celadon was a hero though modern critics don't rate either the character or his story very high.
The English name is more logical. The Cuban Kite is found mostly on that island. It has been known to flit to other islands and to southern Florida, but is not established as a resident anywhere else. Though predictably easy to find in Cuba during the flight period of each of the two generations in a year (one official butterfly census counted the Swallowtail population of a park as "8 Polydamas swallowtails, 14 Papilio andraemon, 8 P. caiguanabus, and 53 Cuban Kites"), it can be described as somewhat rare because of its small overall population. Cubans are aware of it as an island specialty and protect some known habitats for the species in nature preserves.
Photo by Martin Mueller http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/zooweb/servlet/AnimalBase/home/picture?id=5793, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16274485
The Cuban government has tried to document all the island's butterflies on postage. Slow-loading because of all the color pictures, but sure to appeal to those who like butterfly paintings, is this catalogue of Cuban stamps and postcards featuring butterflies including celadon:
The Cuban Kite is the smallest Swallowtail butterfly in Cuba. It is not an especially small butterfly. Its wingspread of three inches, give or take a centimeter, puts it in the size range with the "smaller" early spring or Northern Zebra Swallowtail. Older butterflies, their colored stripes faded to white, remind US visitors of Zebra Swallowtails. When this butterfly has been reported as a visitor to Florida's mainland, the question always arises how it was possible to be sure that what was seen was not a Zebra Swallowtail, and the last time the butterfly was caught or photographed clearly enough to be accepted as definitely a Cuban Kite may have been in 1945.
One way to distinguish between older, faded Cuban Kites and Zebras is that Cuban Kites' stripes line up in such a way that the tails on the hind wings are black, while Zebras' stripes line up in such a way that the tails are white. But a combination of fading and iridescence can make even this information hard to rely on in the field, and tails can be lost to predators. Wide incomplete stripes across separate sections of wings, breaking up into "spots," are typical of Cuban Kites. Small red spots can form perpendicular stripes on the underside of the wings. At a close view, the tail section of the body shows black-and-white crosswise stripes, suggesting a bee or wasp, broken up by lengthwise stripes below.
Photo by Tim Norriss.
Another confusible species is Urania boisduvali, which, unlike Eurytides (or Protographium) marcellus, is found in Cuba and is actually classified as a day-flying moth. Urania boisduvali has long thin stripes that usually seem continuous down the full length of both wings, rather than breaking up into spots. It shares the color combination of black and cerulean blue.
Cuban Kites pollinate several flower species, including wildflowers in the genus Bidens.
Relatively little is known about the life cycle of this butterfly. Eggs are said to be light green and have been found on Nectandra coriacea, a shrub in the laurel family. Caterpillars and chrysalides have not been documented online. Cuban citizens have been prevented from sharing whatever they may have learned about this butterfly. Censorship has always been the great enemy of science. The few scientific papers online that mention it do so only in passing, usually on lists, sometimes in contrast to butterflies whose blue color is produced by iridescent effects rather than pigment as a component of the scales. Eurytides (or Protographium) celadon is known to the world almost exclusively from lucky snapshots taken by foreign tourists.
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