Graphium macfarlanei is Australia's Green Triangle butterfly. Not very big for a tropical Swallowtail, with a wingspan that hardly ever exceeds three and a half inches, it's loved because it's easy to find and photograph. It lives in and near forests on Australia and some nearby islands.
Photo from https://www.wildtropicalqueensland.com/p/butterlies.html . Many other butterflies and a few other animals are also beautifully photographed there.
Some Swallowtails have tails on their hind wing like the bird called a swallow; some have none, and some, like the Green Triangle, look as if they had tried to grow tails but not quite succeeded. They are still classified as Swallowtails because of the underlying structure of their wings. Some online sources erroneously identify the Green Triangle with the Brush-Footed Butterflies (Nymphalidae) or Mothlike Butterflies (Hesperidae), but it is a Papilionid, a Swallowtail, all the same.
Photo from Collections-biologie.u-bordeaux.fr. Males have well developed scent folds on the inside edge of each hind wing.
Photo by Themoojuice, taken in May. Under wings can resemble upper wings, or can be better camouflaged.
Photo by Kerrycoleman, taken in July.
Sex does not determine the pattern of the undersides; in some couples male and female look alike:
Subspecies admiralia, cestius, and seminigra have been added to the "nominate subspecies" Graphium macfarlanei macfarlanei. However, although the species is found on well separated islands, individual variations among island butterflies have not generally been consistent enough to define subspecies.
Admiralia, found on the Admiralty Islands, interested early naturalists because Graphium macfarlanei is like, yet not the same as, G. agamemnon. Both species are found on these islands and G. macfarlanei admiralia shares with G. agamemnon admiralis a slight consistent difference, with smaller green spots on the fore wings. There doesn't seem to be an evolutionary reason for this. It is conceivable that the reason might be that the Designer of these animals foresaw evolutionary speculation, found it amusing, and said, "Won't those humans have a time trying to explain THIS."
(No, I don't believe that God lacks anything God built into us, except a mortal body and its limitations.)
Cestius is found only on three little islands you probably never heard of. Its difference from the other subspecies is defined by the relative size of a few specific spots on its wings.
Seminigra, first described as a separate species, is a little larger than other macfarlanei with a wingspan slightly over four inches. Its hind wings are almost completely black. It is found on the island of New Britain.
Graphium macfarlanei feeds on and pollinates the flowering vines-or-shrubs in the genus Desmos. It seems to be purely a pollinator; males aren't photographed "puddling." It can also live in symbiosis with the introduced fruit trees that bear biriba and soursop fruits. Soursop fruit grow on a small tree which bears strange fruit. Soursop is nutritious when eaten in moderation but "high consumption" is associated with Parkinson's Disease, because the fruit as well as the leaves contain a neurotoxic chemical.
Photo from Somemagneticislandplants.com.au. Soursop is classified as a "relative" of our pawpaw; it has similar-shaped blossoms, only with pale rather than dark colored petals, and similar leaves, but the fruit is firm, spiny, and sourish rather than banana-like.
Biriba is an even odder-looking fruit. From its soft texture and sweet flavor it's been called "lemon-meringue-pie fruit." Individual fruits can weigh up to four kilograms. Unlike pumpkins, watermelons, and other cucurbits whose fruits can reach a comparable size, the biriba does not have a hard shell. It has a fragile yellow rind made up of segments that point outward and resemble a large bunch of small bananas. So far no hazards of consuming this fruit seem to have been reported.
Graphium macfarlanei caterpillars eat the leaves of these imported fruit trees, but they are not considered pests. They are symbionts. They don't eat enough leaves to harm their host plants while they're caterpillars; they help to pollinate the trees when they are butterflies. Like our Zebra Swallowtails, even when the circumstantial evidence appears to be against them they are friends of their host trees.
Mark Hopkinson found that these butterflies can live on additional host trees, and that their populations have increased as they've found it possible to live on ornamental trees introduced to Australia.
They are primarily a pollinator species.
Photo by Doug_Herrington, taken in February.
Mark Hopkinson reared several broods of Graphium macfarlanei to obtain accurate information about their life cycle:
Hopkinson observed that males of this species often fly above the treetops in local forests, while females fly where their food plants grow, at the edge of the forests. Adult butterflies are believed to fly for about two weeks.
Mother butterflies spend a lot of their time selecting just the right leaves on which to place their eggs. They lay eggs by ones but, if they don't find enough suitable food plants, will return and place newer eggs next to older eggs.
Photo by Dickw, taken in February.
The caterpillars are green, or brownish green, and well camouflaged.
Photo by Markkorner, taken in February.
They have the same harmless but unpalatable spikes other Graphium caterpillars have, and the same humpbacked shape. They develop a "belt" stripe, as some of the bigger Swallowtail caterpillars do.
Photo by Martinlagerwey, taken in May.
Or they can be dark brown with a yellow patch:
Photo by Dickw, taken in February.
Or even mustard yellow...They probably don't have enough brain to think "I look like a very small venomous snake," but they benefit from the resemblance.
Photo by Benedicte_Whitfield, taken in June.
Caterpillars eat their own shed skins except for the harder skin on the head. Hopkinson's caterpillars did not eat younger siblings; then again, presumably they were well supplied with fresh leaves. The balance of nature may not require this species to be susceptible to cannibalism because eggs, caterpillars, and pupae are vulnerable to various parasites including tachinid flies.
The osmeterium or "stink horns" is not often seen. Someone using the Facebook name "Phil Collins" posted a video of his pestering a caterpillar by folding up the leaf under it while the caterpillar was trying to eat. No osmeterium came out. However, A. Jaszlics got this caterpillar's osmeterium into full display, possibly through cruelty:
Pupae are brown or green.
Photo by Martinlagerwey, taken in May.
Photo by Summerdrought.
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