On Sulawesi island, Graphium milon, which we studied last week, is found on the lower land near the beach and Graphium monticolus, the Graphium of the Low Hills, is found on the island's higher plains, at altitudes from about 1000-2000 feet. That's one way of telling them apart. They look very similar and scientists have made the case for classifying both as subspecies of other look-alike species like Graphium anthedon or G. sarpedon. Some science sites don't maintain pages for one or both of these two species.
Many papers proposing various ways to classify this tribe of look-alike butterflies have been printed. Here's one that's been published online:
Photo by William_Stephens, taken in September on Sulawesi.
The Indonesian government would like the world to know that a good place to observe these butterflies is the Lore Lindu National Park.
The border of lighter scallops inside the edge of the fore wings is found on only some individuals and has been reported as a basis for classifying those individuals as a separate subspecies longilinea, but is now regarded as an aberration.
The species doesn't seem to be endangered. The IUCN Red List is, however, one of the sources that don't recognize monticolus as a species.
Then there are sources that use a different form of the Latin name. Graphium monticolum, monticola, monticula, monticulum, or monticulus all refer to the same species. Personal opinions, including opinions about Latin grammar, are supposed to have no place in science. Species names are proper names, so some say that the person who first documented the species has the right to name them. If that person wanted to name a species after Augustus Caesar but spell the name avgvstas, that might be "wrong" in classical Latin but it would thereafter be "right" in biology. Others think it's proper to "correct" Latin and Greek spellings. Debates between these opinions have been going on for a long time and their main effect has been to complicate searches for information.
The group, probably all male, shown above are composting. Many male butterflies need to absorb mineral salts in order to be able to mate. They slurp up brackish or polluted water, let their bodies filter out the pollutant minerals, excrete relatively cleaner water, and retain the salts in their bodies. Females also need minerals, but they don't usually have to come out to puddles to get them; they get their mineral salts from contact with their mates. However, though male butterflies of many species are composters, they also pollinate flowers. Female Swallowtails are definitely pollinators.
Photo by Kaithefishguy. Graphiums generally tend to like shallow flowers. Their probosces look long in proportion to their heads, but are smaller than those of other butterflies.
Where are all the females? Female Swallowtails usually spend more time looking for suitable host plants on which to lay eggs, while the males are hanging out at puddles. For many species this means the females are usually in the woods, where their darker wings are often well camouflaged. They often fly through the treetops where they're almost never seen by humans. And when they do come out where we can see them, in many species the female is bigger and has better camouflaged colors than the male, but in the Graphiums this difference may be noticeable only if we spot a couple together. As a result many female Graphiums are almost, if not entirely, undocumented.
If we know nothing about the females, we know nothing about the eggs and young. If we know nothing about the eggs and young, we know nothing about the butterflies' place in the local food chain and can't predict when they are endangered. A rather silly paper projecting that Sulawesi's butterflies may be able to adapt to warmer climates by growing darker wings, as some Swallowtail butterflies actually do, is of less use than a simple paper, of the kind that might be prepared by a twelve-year-old, documenting what the caterpillars eat.
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