Graphium polistratus is also called the Dancing Swordtail. It is found in Africa, in some of the same places as Graphium policenes; it flits through warm, damp forests in Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tanzania. This species is relatively easy to distinguish from G. policenes because the pale stripes on its wings are narrower.
Photo by Titi-Uu, Kenya, December 2024. These butterflies are seldom photographed; the individuals that have been photographed were almost all males sipping water from puddles.
Photo by Wildnothos, Kenya, December 2015. As with other Graphiums, the pale color can appear azure blue, pale blue, greenish, white, or yellowish depending on the light.
Photo by Liamragan, Kenya, June 2019. Upper wing surfaces seem to be most easily seen on museum specimens.
However, two splendid clear photos of a female, one with her upper wings spread out and one with her wings pulled together above her, can be found in
This issue of the magazine features life histories and photos of several African Graphium species. The photo essay also includes polistratus caterpillars and pupae.
There's also a nice clear photo of polistratus with its wings spread on page 87 of this PDF:
Polistratus, or Polystratus or Polustratos, was the name of more than one person in ancient Greek literature. One Polystratus, possibly related to or the same person as Sostratus, was an army buddy of Heracles; when he was killed in battle, Heracles cut his hair short as a show of mourning. A better documented Polystratus was an Epicurean philosopher, perhaps best known for a speech or article about the irrationality of the philosophers of a different school. The name means "many armies."
The butterfly species has also been called sisenna, after a Roman historian.
At one time some butterflies with slight consistent differences in their spots, generally similar to polistratus, were classified as Papilio richelmanni. This type of butterfly is now regarded as a subspecies of Graphiun polistratus.
Each adult butterfly has about two weeks to fly. Eggs and young develop fast in warm weather and, since they live in places where the weather is always warm, they are believed to breed throughout the year, so that there is always a Graphium polistratus flying somewhere.
However, the females, especially, spend most of their time in forests where they look like shadows and are seldom observed by humans. Like other Graphiums they spend a lot of time selecting tender young leaves or leaf buds on which to place each little round bead of an egg.
As the species depend on trees for food and shelter, their presence is sometimes seen as a good sign of a healthy forest. They are also sometimes reared for sale to collectors. At the Nambiga forest preserve in Tanzania and at others, these butterflies may help local farmers reconcile themselves to their new neighbors' strange (to them) insistence on preserving the lives of animals, such as elephants, that sometimes damage crops.
Caterpillars live on small trees in the family Annonaceae, in the genera Annona and Uvaria. As with other Graphium species, people may fear that the caterpillars will kill their trees, but in fact, as true symbionts, they almost never harm their hosts. In fact, the adult butterflies pollinate these trees and help keep the species alive.
Caterpillars have a family resemblance to other Graphiums, and the life cycle seems to be similar to Graphium policenes. Little seems to have been published online about the life cycle of this species.
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