Eurytides dioxippus, or Protographium dioxippus, is also known as the Thick-Bordered Kite. It lives in northern South America, usually in hill forests between 1000 and 3000 feet above sea level, but has been found at "mile-high" altitudes.
Photo by Raulecarmona for Inaturalist.
It is yet another South American butterfly, reported from Colombia and Belize, that is not well documented but not believed to be immediately threatened. The subspecies diores is very rare; photos are available only for museum specimens, but nobody can confirm whether it used to be more common, or in fact could be more common. The Kites tend to be monophagous--able to eat only one kind of plant leaves, as caterpillars--so it's not possible for their populations to survive out of a precise balance with their host plants.
Experts disagree on whether E. or P. lacandones is a separate species, whether it is a subspecies of dioxippus, or whether dioxippus is a subspecies of lacandones.
Photo of lacandones by Stevendaniel. Currently most online sources lean toward classifying lacandones as a subspecies of dioxippus; there's not enough material about lacandones as a species to make a separate post. It is more widespread across northern South America.
Another subspecies, marae, is mentioned in some sources--not all--as living in Venezuela. It has slightly but consistently different spots from E. or P. or maybe N. dioxippus dioxippus. It was described recently enough, in 1990, that the origin of the name is known: it was named after a research assistant called Maria. Marae shares habitat with the fascinating Heliconius cydno barinisensis and at least a few of the gigantic Morphos, and seems to have been overshadowed by those. All known specimens photographed or dissected were males found at puddles. Nothing is known about the female, much less the young. According to T. Racheli et al., the first research team to describe marae, it can be common at the transition between dry and rainy seasons but is seldom found at other times of year.
The one photo of marae at ButterfliesOfAmerica.
Confusion about its genus name reflects the fact that, badly though some people want to believe that Darwin's theory of evolution is a fact, it's not one. We know that natural selection does cause animal populations to evolve within a species. We don't know that it causes species to evolve into other species, or when or whether such "macroevolution" may have occurred. We do know that the different types of Swallowtail butterflies on different continents have features in common; we've seen how much the Battus resemble the Atrophaneura group, and we're starting to see how much the Eurytides resemble the Graphium group. Eurytides is a simple description of this genus as having "broader" wings than some other butterflies, square rather than oar-shaped. Some biologists prefer to call these species Protographium, expressing a belief that the Graphium genus evolved out of them, and some prefer Neographium, expressing a brief that they evolved out of Graphium. Some sites list Protographium as an old, obsolete name for some of the Eurytides, and some now list it as the new, hip name that (some) biologists have re-adopted. For what it's worth, which isn't much, Google pulls up more results for Eurytides dioxippus but more exclusively scientific results for Protographium dioxippus. Insecta.pro even mentions a compromise species name, Eurygraphium, which apparently never caught on.
Apart from this confusion, the name dioxippus has been constant. It comes from ancient literature that is believed to have been historically accurate rather than legendary. Dioxippus was one of a set of Greek names that incorporated the word hippos, a horse, and had become traditional given names. The famous person by this name was a champion athlete. The champions in the original Greek Olympic games were supposed to be all-rounders with some skills in rhetoric and music as well as physical sports, but at one particular game called pankration this Dioxippus was so renowned that he won the Olympic laurels by default--nobody else even wanted to try competing against him. From the fact that nobody wanted the honor of coming in second we may guess that pankration was a rough game. The name, "all-ruler," suggests something like a battle royale. The rules, if there were any, have been buried in the sands of time. It would be interesting if the butterfly called dioxippus were a champion at flying or play-fighting, but it doesn't seem to be one, even among the lightweight Kites.
Do dioxippusand lacandones look like a single species to you? Museum specimens are shown side by side for comparison at http://www.swallowtails.net/E_dioxippus.htm .They look very similar to each other and to calliste. Jeffrey Glassberg's Swift Guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America points out the tiny consistent differences.
Another species name that was given to these butterflies was pausanias, after King Pausanias in ancient Greece, definitely a real person. But dioxippus had been registered first. Pausanias is now used as the species name for another Swallowtail, in the genus Mimoides, not a Kite.
The name lacandones is traced to an indigenous place name, Lakam-Tun, or the people living there, or the stone carvings found there, or, later, to "unconquered" indigenous people generally. Diores was the name of a Trojan prince killed in battle with the Greeks.
While basic Spanish is the common language of many countries, the use of less common words varies among different forms of Spanish. Cometa, the Comet, is a general name for Kites or for those Swallowtails that actually have tails on their hind wings, in some places. It is also the specific name for dioxippus. In countries where it is relatively common dioxippus is the Kite Swallowtail, the basic or quintessential species of its kind.
Edwin Mora made a video recording documenting that more than two of these butterflies may be found drinking at one puddle. This is useful information because so many of the Kites like to spread themselves out over the land, such that it's rare to see more than two at a time. It could mean that dioxippus are less immune to overpopulation than some Kite species, or that their food plant, whatever that may be, is something that's not widespread but locally abundant.
Harry R. Roegner described, in Butterflly Trails, a group of male lacandones flying up and down a stream bed "almost as if they were racing." It's possible. In many Swallowtail species females emerge from their chrysalides ready to mate, but males have to wait a day or two to mature. They spend this time sipping mineral-rich fluids, which for some species include dung and carrion, and for many include brackish or polluted water. Male Swallowtails usually seem to sip fluids peaceably enough with all sorts of drinking buddies, of their own species and others. Sometimes they compete. They rarely fight, but do seem to compete for status by flying higher, faster, or more aggressively than others--if they play a sport, it would be the game called "chicken." We know that some male Swallowtails, like the Tigers, compete but we don't know positively that lacandones do.
The light color on the wings comes from iridescent scales, and can appear as white, ivory, pale yellow, bright yellow, apple green, or seafoam green, or combinations of these, depending on the light. The wingspan is between three and four inches.
Photo by Toucan55.
But the Kites just don't seem to attract much attention in South America. North Americans think our native Kite is quite interesting, perhaps because it looks exotic here. People overseas think the Kites are interesting; dioxippus has been featured on postage in Togo. South Americans think other butterflies are bigger, showier, more of an attraction or more of a nuisance, and so a great deal remains to be learned about the Kites.
Do males and females look alike? Is the general rule for Swallowtails, that females tend to have lower-contrast coloring than males, applicable to this species?
Photo from ButterfliesOfAmerica. Is this a courting couple?
Do I seriously think butterflies can be as profitable as Colombia's best known, illegal, harmful product? Well, obviously, not in the short term. On the other hand the study of butterflies can lead to respectable careers and the opportunity for a modest, dignified kind of international fame. When a quick survey of what's been published online raises more questions than answers for so many South American butterflies (and you know the situation will be even more dire when we consider butterfly families less conspicuous than the Swallowtails)...and, at the same time, people from South America are giving up so much in order to become unwanted immigrants, employable only in underpaid menial jobs if at all, with a minority of North Americans wanting to offer them a new kind of second-class citizenship and a majority wanting to keep them out...this web site must wonder why a connection is not being made. By conserving their natural environment, South Americans can attract more tourism and support more prestigious jobs. Mexico's Monarch groves have a unique appeal no other combination of distinctive butterflies, distinctive trees, the distinctive climate that supports them, and the charming ambiance of the small, modest, tourist-friendly towns nearby, could really match...but each country further south has its own attractions.
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