Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Endochus

Graphium endochus is very similar to the other Graphiums and Eurytides in many ways, especially to the Graphiums nicknamed "White Ladies," but it has a different look. Its mostly white upper wings are lined with red inside, sable outside, and can look pale pink in some lights. (I looked for a photo where the wings looked pinkish. I did not find one.) It is usually tailless, but on some individuals the scallops on the outer edges of the hind wings form vestigial tails.

Photo by Jimsteamer.

The species doesn't really have an English name, though some call it the Madagascan or Malagasy White Lady. Its Latin name endochus must mean something, because it's also the name of a genus of bugs and a genus of fossil fish, but Google finds no references to Endochus before the nineteenth century. If it was the name of a character in Greek or Roman literature, he was an obscure character. If it's a description of a species with its brightest color markings inside, endo-, it doesn't seem to come from a phrase in Greek or Latin either.

Google doesn't find much informative content about Graphium endochus online, though that may be because of the would-be global overlords' endless quest to dumb down the information the Internet offers the world, suppressing science pages whenever a shopping page can be shoved into their place. The traffic in dead bodies of Graphium endochus is abundantly documented online. Beyond how to identify and sell dead bodies, little seems to be known about the species; the life cycle is undocumented.

Found on Madagascar and in Mozambique, endochus might in theory be able to hybridize with G. angolanus, G. morania, G. ridleyanus, G. schaffgotschi, or G. taboranus, if it ever met them. Apparently it doesn't.

There may be only one generation in a year. These butterflies are most often found in October, less often in November, rarely in December, and apparently never in the first nine months of the year. However, their life cycle has not been documented.

As with so many Swallowtails, most photos are of males drinking at puddles. Graphium endochus are found alone and in large mixed flocks. I found no photos of multiple endochus in a flock. This is typical of species that eat only one food plant, which is not super-abundant where they live. Adult butterflies don't fight (although in some species males bicker, flying harmlessly at each other, to determine status); butterflies who need, for survival purposes, to be the only one of their sex and species in a neighborhood, recognize the scent of competing members of their species and move away from where they are.

Photo by Sabrewing.

As a pollinator it's found on several light-colored, shallow flowers.

Photo by Blackdogto.

Even the average size of this butterfly is not documented except in those photos of mixed flocks, which suggest that it's about the size of our Tiger Swallowtails. Compared with other species found on Madagascar it's not a small butterfly, but it's far from looking like a large one.