The species name Graphium garhwalica has not been used for very long. It's probably a better name for the Spectacled Swordtail, Graphium glycerion, as discussed last week; (1) glycerion was first registered as the species name for a different kind of Swallowtail and is also the name for a small Copper butterfly, and (2) garhwalica is more informative, identifying it as the Garhwal Swordtail. Garhwal is one of the places in India and nearby countries where it's been found.
It is not a common or well known species. It is furiously confusible with several other Graphiums that aren't very common or well known either.
Photo by Mohitpatel845, taken in India, showing that in garhwalica the spectacle-shaped marking can look more like a chain across the underside of each hind wing....
Photo by Mohitpatel845, same photo session, showing that when the spectacles are clearly marked one of them can be filled in with color while the other is white.
And another photo by Mohitpatel845, same photo session, showing that on the upper side of the hind wings the spectacles and other black stripes may not show at all.
And, like so many Swallowtails, it's variable. This museum-case photo, uploaded by Adam Cotton, shows the possibilities for this species' wing markings, upper wing surfaces above, under wing surfaces below.
As in other white Graphiums, the outer edges of the wings, especially, can lose scales fast and look transparent.
Photo from Ifoundbutterflies.org. This photo shows two drinking buddies side by side; you can clearly see the edges of one butterfly's wings through the edges of the other one's wings. This photo also documents that, though they seem well spread out through their range, these butterflies don't mind sharing territory.
Like several other Graphiums, including dark-colored ones, this species seems attracted to bright blue or turquoise colors--even when they're nasty plastic waste.
Like many Swallowtails, although both sexes pollinate flowers, males also compost brackish or polluted water, from which they extract mineral salts. Male Swallowtails require a lot of minerals in their diet, first in order to finish maturing and be able to mate, then in order to nourish females, who don't like mineral salts themselves and prefer to absorb their minerals indirectly from contact with males. This can make them bold enough to alight on humans and lick salty sweat from our skin. However, garhwalica has not (yet) been photographed doing that, even when the sweat was soaking through a blue shirt or sock.
This species is probably not very familiar with humans. It is usually found at high altitudes, which may explain its being smaller than other Graphiums (about the size of our Tiger Swallowtails, with longer tails) and having only one generation per year. An Annotated Catalogue of the Butterflies of Nepal, which can be read online or downloaded as a PDF, says it's usually found around 6,000 feet above sea level. It flies in early summer. Eggs presumably hatch into caterpillars that mature in summer and pupate over the winter, but nobody seems to have documented this.
Adam Cotton, the co-author of a book that explained the "new" reclassification of this group of Graphiums in 2018, gives this list of the "new" species names that scientists are increasingly using to replace the ones this web site listed in our discussion of the Six-Barred Swordtail: "The other Graphium species thought to be closely related to eurous, and sometimes classified in the genus or subgenus Pazala, are alebion, glycerion, hoenei, incerta, mandarinus, mullah, tamerlanus, and timur." That post mentioned that some scientists wanted a whole new list of species. Which scientists are those? The ones who discuss Graphium garhwalica, of course. This was the state of Cotton's research in 2018; the species list for this group may have changed further by now.
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As a result of the latest paper detailed here:insectnet.proboards.com/thread/7638/revision-pazala-mandarinus-group
I can update the classification of subgenus Pazala as follows:
Genus Graphium Scopoli, 1777 (Type Species: Papilio sarpedon Linnaeus, 1758)
Subgenus Pazala Moore, 1888 (Type Species: Papilio glycerion Gray, 1831)
Graphium alebion (Gray, 1853) (Type Locality: Northern China)
= mariesii (Butler, 1881) (Type Locality: Lu-Shan mountains, province of Kiukiang, China)
Graphium tamerlanus (Oberthür, 1876)
ssp. tamerlanus (Oberthür, 1876) (Type Locality: Moupin)
= taliensis (O. Bang-Haas, 1927) (Type Locality: China mer. occ.: Jünnan, Tali)
ssp. kansuensis (O. Bang-Haas, 1933) (Type Locality: Kansu mer. or., Tsinglingschan, Peilingschan)
Graphium parus (de Nicéville, 1900) (Type Locality: Tse Kou, Western China)
= incertus (O. Bang-Haas, 1927) (Type Locality: China mer. occ.: Tatsienlu)
Graphium eurous (Leech, 1893)
ssp. caschmirensis (Rothschild, 1895) (Type Locality: North Cashmere)
= cashmirensis (Moore, 1903) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
= kashmirensis (Bingham, 1907) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
= caschmirense Katayama, 1986 [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
ssp. sikkimica (Heron, 1899) (Type Locality: Sikkim)
= sikkima (Moore, 1903) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
= sikhimica (Bingham, 1907) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
ssp. eurous (Leech, 1893) (Type Locality: Chang Yang, Central China)
= eurois (Moore, 1903) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
= euroa (Chou, 1994) [Unjustified Emendation]
ssp. panopaea (de Nicéville, 1900) (Type Locality: Tse Kou, Western China)
ssp. melli Racheli & Cotton, 2009 (Type Locality: Yuechengling Shan, Guangxi, China)
ssp. meridionalis (Mell, 1935) (Type Locality: Nordkwangtung: Linping)
ssp. inthanon Katayama, 1986 (Type Locality: Doi Inthanon, Chiang Mai, N. Thailand)
ssp. asakurae (Matsumura, 1907) (Type Locality: Formosa)
= formosanus (Oberthür, 1909) (Type Locality: Formose: Mont Morrison, 10,000 pieds) [Junior Homonym]
= koxinga (Wileman, 1909) (Type Locality: Formosa) [Junior Homonym]
Graphium mullah (Alphéraky, 1897)
ssp. mullah (Alphéraky, 1897) (Type Locality: Ja-djóou & Lu-tine, Sé-Tchouen)
= timur (Ney, 1911) (Type Locality: Ta-tsien-lu, S. W. China)
= timor (Draeseke, 1923) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
ssp. chungianus (Murayama, 1961) (Type Locality: Gōkan, Zentral-formosa, 2000m.)
= tayal (Shirôzu, 1961) (Type Locality: Vicinity of Urai, N. Formosa)
= chungiyanus (d’Abrera, 1982) [Incorrect Subsequent Spelling]
ssp. kooichii (Morita, 1996) (Type Locality: LacSao, Laos)
Graphium garhwalica (Katayama, 1988) (Type Locality: Joshimath, 2400 m., Uttar Pradesh, N. W. India)
Graphium paphus (de Nicéville, 1886) (Type Locality: Sikkim)
= glycerion (Gray, 1831) (Type Locality: Nepaul) [Junior Homonym]
Graphium sichuanica (Koiwaya, 1993) (Type Locality: Dujiang Yan, Sichuan, China)
Graphium hoeneanus Cotton & Hu, 2018 [Replacement name]
= hoenei (Mell, 1935) (Type Locality: Chekiang: West- und Ost-Tienmoshan (Fukien, Südkiangsi), Nordkwangtung) [Junior Homonym]
Graphium daiyuanae Hu, Zhang & Cotton, 2018 (Type Locality: Sapa (1,600 m), Lao Cai Province, Vietnam)
Graphium confucius Hu, Duan & Cotton, 2018 (Type Locality: Xi Chong (2,000 m), Kunming, C. Yunnan, China)
Graphium mandarinus (Oberthür, 1879)
ssp. stilwelli Cotton & Hu, 2018 (Type Locality: Tacheng (1,900 m), Weixi, W. Yunnan, China)
f. ♂ albarea (Rousseau-Decelle, [1947]) (Type Locality: Ginfu, Etats Schans) [Infrasubspecific]
ssp. mandarinus (Oberthür, 1879) (Type Locality: Moupin)
= mandarina Chou, 1994 [Unjustified Emendation]
ssp. kimurai Murayama, 1982 (Type Locality: Doi Inthanon, N. Thailand)
ssp. fangana (Okano, 1986) (Type Locality: near Fang, Chieng Mai Prov., N. Thailand)
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Because when people really "do the science," very little in science stays "settled" for very long. We still lack a lot of information about these butterflies. There's still room for today's students in Asian colleges to make scientific history by gathering that information, and if they do, this species group may be reclassified all over again.
Peter Smetacek's Papilionid Butterflies of the Indian Subcontinent (Revised Edition) is not free for the downloading, but it does use this classification system with a page of clear color photos for each species. If you want to see how the upper hind wing shows, only in some lights, a faint shadow of the markings on the under side, the page for garhwalica is 74/148, about halfway through the book. If you want a coffee-table e-book, just leave the tab open. Gorgeous photos.
Inaturalist is in the process of converting to this classification system, and at the time of writing was asking someone with more online time than I had to set up a Wikipedia page for garhwalica.
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