Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Agamedes

Graphium agamedes is another African butterfly, found in many of the same places as G. adamastor. Both butterflies' body structure is similar to that of a species that really is white, nicknamed the White Lady, and so they've been nicknamed White Ladies too, although they're not white. G. agamedes is, more specifically, Westwood's White Lady. (John O. Westwood was the first naturalist to describe it.) It's also been nicknamed "Glassy Graphium," possibly from a tendency to lose wing scales as the Clearwings do.

Photo by Cabintom, from a museum.

The early naturalists liked to name Swallowtails after characters in literature. Agamedes may have been a real person; he was mentioned in ancient literature as the builder, in partnership with a brother and no doubt many unnamed laborers, of a temple of Apollo.  

The butterfly, described as "local and uncommon," is found in the lowland forest of several tropical African countries, along the Volta River and elsewhere. Some records are disputed; butterflies flit through places where they don't actually live. Agamedes is believed to live in Benin, Cameronn, the Central African Republic, Ghana,the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Togo, and Congo/Zaire, and possibly other countries. It is not believed to be endangered. 

A large percentage of the web pages that mention this species are checklists. Rather than telling people about this butterfly, they're still enlisting people to help gather information about it. Photos are of museum pieces, although living butterflies are still regularly found in the places where they live, probably in symbiosis with a single food plant species. More people are trying to sell dead bodies than are offering photos or videos of living butterflies.

The position of this web site is that we should not pay for dead bodies of butterflies. The animals have short lives and donate their bodies to science, or whatever else may want them, at a predictable interval after they start flying. There is no ethical problem, and little additional physical difficulty, for serious scientists to collect dead or dying butterflies. Species populations are not affected by removing old or dead bodies from butterfly habitats. There is no need to encourage desperate people to kill living butterflies, either. If you are not going to dissect a butterfly's body or analyze the chemicals it contains, digital photos of living butterflies are much prettier than fading, decaying carcasses.Yes, a lot of people who want to add pretty, unusual butterflies like Graphium agamedes to their collections don't want to go to equatorial Africa. Africans can and should exploit that by selling us pretty pictures, not nasty carcasses.

The earliest description of this butterfly notes that its base color is a dark shade of drab that can be seen as black, brown, or gray: "Alis anticis subdiaphanis griseo-nigricantibus basi obscurioribus, fascia lata alba e margine interno ad medium ale extensa, inde versus costam per medium arez discoidalis extens4é punctisque submarginalibus albis ; posticis ecaudatis, fuscis, fascia lata alba, e medio feré ad basin extensa, posticé dentaté punctisque albis duplici serie ordinatis. Allis posticis subtus pone fasciam pallidé fuscis nigro lineatis et albo maculatis ; basi aurantiis nigro bimaculatis. Expans. alar. unc. 3." 

In other words, the upper side of the wings is mostly blackish with some white spots, large spots closer to the body, smaller sots toward the edges. The underside is lighter in color. Males have scent folds, which may be lined with light brownish hair. 

The life cycle of this butterfly remains to be discovered.