This week's Graphium was named after a real person of recent times, Alexander Macleay. He was a British butterfly collector, chairman of the Linnean Society. After having some things in Australia named in his honor he moved to Australia and bequeathed his collection to a university there. In Gaelic "Macleay" sounds slightly different from "Maclay"; in English the subtle distinction is lost.
Small for its genus, with wingspans typically just over two inches, the butterfly gets along well with humans and is beloved in its habitat, eastern Australia. Dainty and well camouflaged though it is, and easy to find, these collectors rate it as interesting as the huge, showy Birdwings and the exotic Bhutanitis:
It is thought to be the only Swallowtail that actually lives in Tasmania.
Photo by Tobias Hayashi. The green color often seems to fade into the landscape around the butterfly, especially as the green parts of the wings tend to become translucent, but it can iridesce bright emerald green in the right light.
Photo by Tobias Westmaier.
Photo from OzAnimals.com. Females are slightly larger than males; both sexes have a fatter, furrier body shape than many Swallowtails have. They live in rain forest areas where this colorful pattern on the wings provides good camouflage.
Photo by Ejh296.
Photo by Terrymuns.
Photo by Trigonotarbida.
But they also like flowers against which they're not well camouflaged at all! Photo by Grace1066. The Internet is lavishly supplied with photos of Macleays pollinating flowers of every color of the rainbow.
Photo by Silversea_Starsong. Macleays' ability to fly high gives them the opportunity to pollinate tall trees as well as garden flowers. This is the subspecies moggana.
Photo by Rhyde. In some lights they can look almost fluorescent.
They are energetic butterflies, often seen flying above the treetops or in a sunbeam among the trees in beech or eucalyptus forests. They can be hard to photograph clearly, which may explain why so many people who have snapped a clear photo of this butterfly want to publish it. Perusing this species' Inaturalist page is like taking a short course in the favorite flowers of Australia, wild and cultivated. No butterfly can pollinate every flower but Macleays seem to try.
There is some controversy about the spelling of the species name. Macleayanus is traditional and brings up most hits on a web search, but some quibble that macleayanum is the form that properly goes with Graphium in Latin.
There was, long ago, a quickly resolved dispute about what the name should be. Almost fifty years after the name Papilio macleayanus had been accepted, someone described the same butterfly and named it Papilio scottianus. This name was quickly recognized as an unnecessary synonym and discarded. Later the genus Papilio was split into the genera we now recognize, including Graphium. Rothschild's comments are worth quoting here. Placing Macleays in a sub-genus group of their own, although they're usually seen as part of a green-camouflage group that includes codrus, choredon, gelon, sarpedon, weiskei, and others, he wrote:
"
The single representative of this group has a strongly hairy body, as P. codrus Cram, and P. glycerion Gray. The green markings are partlv devoid of normal scaling, those on the upperside of the forewings only in the costal region.
The scent-organ within the abdominal fold is in all the " green " Papilios more or less strongly developed....
Papilio scottianus Feld. does not deserve to stand separate even as an aberration.
"
Caterpillars can eat, and adult butterflies can pollinate, several native plant species, like this lovely Pimelea ligustrina.
Photo by Elena Martinez at TheIllawarraFlame.com.au.
Food plants for caterpillars include the Australian species called sassafras, both camphor and camphorwood, and brush pepperbush--like most Swallowtails, they like foods that are somewhat toxic to their predators. Adults are often attracted to lantana and buddleia flowers. They flit and sip through the spring, summer, and autumn months in Australia, from August to April.
This allows the butterfly to be fairly common and very popular. It has inspired a wide range of artists and craftsmen. In addition to the usual photos, drawings, paintings, etc., Graphium macleayanus (or macleayanum) has inspired a special kind of artist's ink--a light yellowish green that shades to a dark emerald green.
And, of course, it's been portrayed on postage stamps:
It's one of the half-dozen or so most memorable Swallowtails selected for the Butterfly Farm Colouring Book:
It's even inspired a fiddle tune:
There is also plenty of traffic in dead bodies. Although butterfly fanciers know that, two to eight weeks depending on the species, at a predictable time after a generation of butterflies eclose we will find dead bodies...
Photo by Safia_Maher.
...and although this species is not endangered...nevertheless, the position of this web site is that we should never pay for dead bodies of butterflies.
Though butterflies are harmless unless swallowed, male "Macleays" probably think they're aggressive, even belligerent animals. They engage in "hilltopping" behavior in which each male claims a high spot, hill, rock, tree, etc., as his territory and tells others to keep off it. To humans this behavior seems cute and even "friendly." To other butterflies it's a threat display, and although all butterflies can threaten to do to one another is exude their species' scent, Macleays have been recorded as evicting Blue Triangles from gardens. (These species are similar in size and use many of the same food plants.) A few human observers mention noticing that Graphium macleayanaum (or macleayanus) has a "foul" scent; other butterflies probably think they smell terrible.
Photo by Ngaruru, showing the male's brown scent folds. In flight they fan in and out and give other butterflies in the area a clear signal that a male Macleay is nearby, which motivates some other butterflies to go somewhere else, presumably in the way the odor of a skunk motivates Americans to look for a different camp or picnic site.
Photographer Luke O'Brien here documents a typical human reaction to a Macleay's efforts to evict him from the butterfly's territory. He thinks the harmless little animal is pretty, and photographs it several times.
One unusual feature of this Graphium is that, although its habits are easily observed and documented at photo sites like Inaturalist, nobody seems to have a photo of the male drinking mineral-rich water from polluted puddles. With many male Swallowtails it's possible to use even human urine as bait; some will happily slurp up sweat and/or soapy water from human clothing, and several species are attracted to oil-slicked puddles on paved roads. Macleays, male and female, seem to drink only flower nectar.
There are two subspecies in addition to the most common variety, G. macleayanus macleayanus (or macleayanum macleayanum). They were first described by L.E. Couchman in a longish paper about Australian butterflies generally. Serious butterfly fanciers, and people travelling in Australia, are likely to want the whole paper, which has been published online for their convenience:
G.m. wilsoni have more white on the upper fore wings and slightly different arrangements of spots, and are larger than the "nominate" subspecies; they are the individuals whose wingspans may be three inches or a little more. They were "Wilson's" subspecies because they were first described from specimens in F.E. Wilson's collection.
G.m. moggana are smaller and darker than the other subspecies. They are the subspecies found in Tasmania. Moggana was an indigenous Tasmanian word for "wet, rainy," describing their habitat.
Some sources also mention a G.m. insulana found on Norfolk and Lord Howe Island...as having not been seen for years and been, perhaps, an aberrant or hybrid form rather than a real subspecies. It was said to have bigger spots than G.m. macleayanus.
Photo by Nicklambert.
Photo by Simongrove.
Photo by Dianneclarke. A very young Macleay.
Photo by Wjj1967. Not only bristles, but eye spots!
Photo by Melfish8. Caterpillars don't survive by looking pretty and Macleays add to the usual Graphium gross-outs a tail segment that looks like a spare head. The humped end is the front end.
Photo by Lucille_bluth. All Swallowtail caterpillars have osmeteria, bits of erectile tissue sometimes called "stink horns." When the osmeteria come out of the little crack at the front of the caterpillars' humps, their passage is lubricated by quantities of the caterpillars' personal "honey" that even humans can usually smell. Depending on the species the caterpillars' scents may be described as fruity, musty, sweaty, like lantana flowers, or even like carrion, or humans may not notice their scents at all. They are designed to suppress the appetites of birds. The whole procedure of putting out its "stink horns" is stressful, to some degree, to the caterpillar. How stressful varies according to the species. Some caterpillars show their osmeteria readily (like our Tiger Swallowtails, who exude a scent that reminds humans of ripe pineapples), while others really have to be tormented to the point where they probably think their lives are in danger. In species that humans rear, like silkworms and Monarch butterflies, the general consensus is that being teased by humans can interfere with caterpillars' growth.
If, on the other hand, you go out right after a storm with a camera to see what blew down from the treetops, and you find a Swallowtail caterpillar on the ground, waggling its osmeteria furiously in a mute protest against finding itself not in its tree any more, I see no ethical reason not to document that.
Photo from Bob's Butterflies. At this final stage, having dispensed with most of its decorations, the caterpillar is almost but almost never quite two inches long.
Viewed from above, this final-stage caterpillar looks very similar to the corresponding side of the chrysalis it formed later:
Pupae can be green or brown. Both photos from Bob's Butterflies.
Photo by Zosterops99. Pupae are usually attached to a leaf or tree, but this confused animal chose to pupate on the back of a sign.
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