This week's butterfly lives on the island of Madagascar and is officially called Graphium cyrnus. It has several English names. The noun is Lady, or Kite, or Graphium. The adjective is Green, or Madagascan, or Common, or Red-Veined. Any combination of these nouns and adjectives seems to be someone's preferred name.
Photo by Knud Ellegaard.
The only trouble with its being called the Green Lady, or Green Kite or Green Graphium, is that only some of the butterflies actually look green, in only some lights. Even then, it's a pale greenish yellow, not grass green. They can look brown and beige, or even lose wing scales and look transparent.
Photo by Bitty A. Roy.
The most common color pattern appears to be olive drab...brown with a greenish tone, but still...The underwings are a medium reddish brown or orange with yellow, tan, or greenish spots.
Photo by Philbenstead. As shown, males and females look similar. Individuals "collected" and trafficked tend to be male. At one forum a carcass collector complained that he'd never seen a female specimen for sale. Males are often found at puddles, like other unmated Swallowtails, slurping up fresh water, brackish water, or other mineral-rich liquids. Groups can be large, and may include other kinds of butterflies. G. cyrnus don't seem concerned about being the only one of their sex and species in the neighborhood; whatever they eat is probably abundant.
Photo by Eric Mathieu. Fore and hind wings can move independently.
Stamp shown at Grelly: https://www.grelly.com/itm/zambia-mi1117-mnh-2000-butterflies-graphium-cyrnus-nuscyrus-863c-235440788146
Why Cyrnus? At least three characters in ancient Greek literature had this name. One was the founder of an island city. One was his ancestor, who he claimed was the son of Jupiter and a woman called Cyrno. One was the name, or nickname, the poet Theognis gave his boyfriend in his poems.
What about Nuscyrus? Google explains this as the name of a subspecies of Graphium cyrnus. It looks like a Greek or Latin name, but of who, what, or where seems undocumented on the Internet.
Campbell Smith and Richard Vane-Wright, in their book about the African Graphiums, express uncertainty that the butterfly varies consistently enough to be classified as two subspecies. Butterflies found on the eastern part of the island, Graphium cyrnus cyrnus, have more dark areas on their wings, and those on the western part, G.c. nuscyrus, have more yellow, but this tendency does not necessarily make every individual butterfly's home easy to infer from its color pattern. Some sources want to do away with subspecies names altogether. In addition to nuscyrus, two other patterns have been tentatively given names, but both of those specimens are now thought to have been individual variations rather than types or subspecies.
This is a composter species. All butterflies pollinate flowers. Some gather at puddles, and some gather on dung or carrion.
Photo from Deportrettenmaker.com.
It is common on its island, and not thought to be endangered, but nobody seems to have documented its life cycle.
Considerable confusion about this butterfly seems to exist. Some sources attach the name Graphium cyrnus to butterflies that aren't even Swallowtails.
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