Graphium colonna is found in southern Africa. Its English name is Black Swordtail, because it belongs to the group of butterflies called Swordtails and because its predominant color is black. People thinking of a different kind of African wildlife nicknamed it the Mamba Swordtail. "Black Mamba" means a venomous snake but some people think it's a "cool" name for a harmless butterfly.
Photo by Alkilpin, taken in December in South Africa.
The Swallowtails were traditionally named after characters in literature, so who was Colonna? Colonna is the Italian word for "column." As such it was the name of an ancient city and still is the name of an influential family who can trace their pedigree back nine hundred years. Google does not identify it as the name of a fictional character, but does note that many people have liked to think that Michelangelo was in love with Vittoria Colonna. Fiction had probably been written about them in 1873, when this species was named.
The Black Swordtail's wingspan is between 2.1 and 2.6 inches. Males and females look similar; males spend more time in open country and are much more often seen by humans. The colors are produced by iridescent scales, and change as the light shining on them changes. Females are slightly larger than males, and may have wider black or sable stripes; as they spend more time among trees, where they are well camouflaged, they are not often seen by humans at all. Most of the Black Swordtails people see are male.
Photo by Richard_Johnstone, also in December in South Africa. This photo also shows that, although Swordtails use the tails at the ends of their hind wings in flight, the tails also give predators something to grab. A butterfly who has sacrificed its tails to a bird or lizard can still fly.
After an introduction explaining how the genus names of the Swordtails have changed over the years and how lepidopterists describe the color patterns on butterflies' wings and the shapes of their tail ends, Richard Vane-Wright describes the distinguishing features of Graphium colonna beginning at the bottom of page 47...
Countries where the species is found include Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. It may have established breeding populations in other countries besides those. In some places it is rare. It is not known to be endangered. In the United States it and its food plants survive only in enclosed greenhouse conditions, but it has done well in the University of Florida's "Butterfly Rainforest" screened outdoor conservatory. If you visit the area you can see photos, videos, and quite possibly living specimens of this popular species.
A subspecies name was proposed, but most experts seem to think that all colonna belong to a single species with similar DNA and lots of individual variation.
Their genome has been mapped.
In South Africa they are a summer species, a few individuals flying as early as November or as late as April. Nearer the equator they have multiple generations and may be found at any time of year.
They can live in symbiosis with any of half a dozen shrubs or small trees in the genera Annona, Artabotrys, and Uvaria. Artabotrys monteiroae, the Red Hookberry, is an interesting plant. Like poison ivy, it can adapt to conditions and be found as a vine, a bush, or a tree. Five species of Graphium eat its leaves.
They are found in and near forests at low altitudes. Males are often found at puddles; females, like other female Swallowtails, spend more time near their host trees but come out, in the morning and early afternoon, to sip flower nectar.
This species can fly high or low, fast or slow. When they are not being chased, their flight has been described as lazy, but they can speed up above the treetops if alarmed.
Photo by Richard Johnstone, taken in February in South Africa.
Photo by Magdastlucia, taken in South Africa in February. Magdastlucia also donated a photo essay of eight action shots of one couple's courtship flight to Inaturalist. Though one of the pair had wings so tattered that humans might not have expected it to be able to fly at all, it flew persistently around the larger and darker butterfly, whose wings were fresh. Both butterflies flew through long grass; colonna is more likely to fly through denser vegetation than the other species it resembles.
Photo by Donchelu, taken in Tanzania in January. The mother butterfly places an egg on a young, fresh leaf. Google found no image or description of the eggs.
Within the range of Swallowtail caterpillars, most of which try to look like the droppings of a sick animal as much as possible, local lepidopterists find colonna caterpillars distinctive. Their humped backs and upturned tails reminded him of the Notodontidae or Prominent moths, which also like to turn up their tail ends. The color scheme is olive. Younger caterpillars are more yellow and brown; older ones are green and brown. Younger caterpillars have eight little blunt horns, three along either side of the thoracic section and two at the back end, and many little stiff hairs. Older caterpillars don't have the stiff hairs but have textured patches of skin, and their horns grow branches of bristles. They are not venomous, though they are mildly poisonous if swallowed, but they benefit from being as unpleasant for predators to swallow as they can be. Descriptions of these little animals range from "creatively ugly" to "magnificent." However, Google found no photos of the caterpillars.
Photo from the Reiman Gardens. The pupa does a fair job of looking like a slowly dying leaf. It is attached to a stem by a band of silk. Since this species produces scant qualities of a weak grade of silk, pupae are often found when the silk breaks and the pupae dangle loosely from the stem.
Although the adult butterfly looks very much like G. antheus or G. policenes, the larva and pupa look different. Writers usually place G. colonna in the group with G. antheus, but off at the end, due to these structural differences.
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