If we were actually speaking Latin this butterfly's name would make sense: incertus is masculine, incerta is feminine, and incertum is neuter, so the correct form would depend on the butterfly we were talking about. Since we're not speaking Latin one form is considered more correct than the others...but by whom, and why? Wikipedia is going with incerta. Inaturalist favors incertus.
Swallowtail species were traditionally named after characters in ancient literature. Incertus, the Latin word for "unknown," was the name under which an ancient author was cited by other authors. That settles it. The species was named after good old Scriptor Incertus.
(Incertus was later used as a pseudonym by the late distinguished poet Seamus Heaney, too, when he was young and unknown.)
Those who favor incerta say that this species was first identified as a subspecies of Graphium tamerlana (Tamerlan was a masculine, if not supermacho, character in history but the historically "correct" form was tamerlana) and many scientists consider it to be one today. As a subspecies name incerta might as well agree with tamerlana.
I found only one source that used incertum, so let's forget that one.
Photo of tamerlana by Zhangqianyi, who confirmed that this forest-dwelling Graphium shares other Graphiums' attraction to things of a bright sky blue color.
And very little seems to be known about Graphium incertus. It is found in China. It may still be regarded as a subspecies of tamerlana, but not much information is available about tamerlana either.
This kind of thing will happen more often, Gentle Readers, when we get past the big showy Swallowtails. Many smaller species have received almost no attention at all outside the United States--and the majority of butterfly species live outside the United States.
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