People don't agree whether Graphium decolor is "majestic" or "whimsical," nor whether it reminds them more of a tiger or a zebra. Whatever. It is noticeable.
Photo by Leifgabrielsen.
Magnified images of museum specimens adorn posters, towels, mats, and other merchandise sold in countries far from its home, which is Malaysia and the Philippines.
Because really, when you step out of the shower, don't you want to stand on the wings of a crow-sized, long dead butterfly? Actually I can't say that's a thing I've ever wanted to do, but let's give Wal-Mart props for trying to celebrate butterflies in some way. The Graphium decolor atratus mat is available online from Wal-Mart in Canada:
In the US Wal-Mart offered the same motif on a flannel blanket. It was not a great success and is no longer available from walmart.com. Wal-Mart still offers a collection of flannel blankets with butterfly motifs, mostly airbrushed fantasy butterflies in pretty pastel colors, with one black-and-white blanket that just has to be a commemoration of an LSD trip.
A more serious attempt to create original butterfly-inspired art is Lauri R. Dunn Peterson's mandala made from folded-up photos of Graphium decolor's wings. The pictures, arranged to form a logical, symmetrical, geometric design, are embedded in clear resin for a durable decorative piece. You can buy this for only $750 at
Why only museum specimens? Apparently Graphium decolor is one of the "naturally rare" species. Wikipedia lists seven subspecies: atratus, decolor, jamesi, neozebraica, rebeccae, sibuyana, and tigris. Not all sources recognize jamesi and rebeccae. None of these is known to be endangered or decreasing, but only atratus, only on Mindoro island, and only "in season" (so, which season?), is said to be numerous enough that people would be likely to be able to photograph living butterflies. Clear, positively recognizable photos of living decolor are scarce. GBIF.org has one photograph of a living butterfly that can be identified with the faded museum specimens in their gallery. The living butterfly picture appears above. The museum specimens show the different color patterns that identify subspecies, and the tendency for this butterfly to fade from black, leaf green, orange, and white to bark-gray and white.
Several people have posted photos of butterflies that either were not clearly recognizable, or were clearly recognizable as not being Graphium decolor, and called them Graphium decolor. This web site would not presume to arbitrate in disputes about whether a photograph represents decolor or another, less common, very similar looking species. This web site does not even presume to say whether an aged butterfly whose photo shows no tails, and looks as if it never had tails, really was the "Swordtail" decolor. This web site does, however, call out photographs identified as Graphium decolor that are in fact of Sphingid moths. Let us give some people the benefit of the doubt and imagine that they had photographs that at least looked like Graphium decolor but failed to upload them due to computer glitches.
It's called Graphium decolor because its vivid pattern is produced by a process of de-coloration. Before scientists had observed this (in the late nineteenth century) it was called Papilio antiphates. Two fairly well known characters in Greek literature were called Antiphates. The king of the cannibal giants hardly qualifies as a hero, so the butterfly was probably named after the soldier who entered Troy inside the Trojan Horse. But decolor is more scientific, anyway.
Like the Clearwings, whose wings do show some patches of melanin in the wings themselves, Graphium decolor has some color in its wings. Mostly melanin, in the dark spots and stripes along the edges. Its haemolymph is greenish, and it has some yellow-orange pigment in the sections where bright color may be noticeable. Above that the forewings have some of the pale sky-blue colored scales that other Graphiums have, but never very many, and they don't have them long. What start out as leaf-green patches fade to dull olive and mustard yellow. In some lights there may be a suspicion of blue on the inner sections of the wings, but only a suspicion. Generally this is a white butterfly with dark drab and sometimes yellow markings. Its color is described as "subtractive." Take away the turquoise blue wing scales that so many people find so pretty, on the other Graphiums, and decolor is what's left.
And that's about all people seem to notice about it. For a tropical Swallowtail, they note, it is small; its wingspan is typically 6 to 7 cm, more than 2 but not all of 3 inches, about the size of our northern Zebra Swallowtails.
Its life cycle and host plants seem unknown. At a butterfly enthusiasts' forum someone posted a photo of a rather pale-colored Graphium caterpillar with yellowish green on the forward slope of its hump and pale grayish green, fading to white on the final segment, behind, and called it Graphium decolor, but apparently failed to confirm its species identity. It looked logically likely to be decolor. If there is any logic about butterflies it is rarely apparent to the human mind.
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