This week's butterfly, Graphium dorcus, is another South Asian island specialty. On Sulawesi island it's sometimes found at the same puddles with the Yellow Zebra.
Both photos by Manggetotok.
Dorcas was the oldest person believed to have died and been brought back to life in the New Testament. People who are active after age 80 were often a bit hyperactive when younger, and this may have been the case with this lady, who used two names, both of which were the words for "gazelle" in different languages. Dorkas was the Greek word for a gazelle. Tabitha was the Aramaic. The brown, black, and white color scheme may have suggested this butterfly's name. It reminds me more of an okapi, but the okapi was a legendary animal, not positively known to exist, until 1901. Graphium dorcus was named in 1840.
Despite looking completely different from Graphium deucalion, G. dorcus has been confused with it--recently--probably by someone who read the caption on a photo showing the two species together and didn't know which was which. The two species do have a few things in common. Their wings have different shapes but are close to the same size; neither is endangered, and the Internet is full of carcass traffickers promising to ship dead bodies to people who have never been in the South Pacific. And if scientists have written a serious study of dorcus yet, that's more than Google knows.
All photographs of this species alive, on the Internet, may be of males. The wingspan is about three inches. The pale stripes on the undersides of the wings can look greenish or yellwish on some individuals in some lights.
Do females resemble males? What do the caterpillars eat? Apparently an opportunity still remains for someone to become famous by being the first to find out.
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