The Kinabalu Swordtail is not especially rare. It's a "lifer" because its range is limited to places most people visit only once in a lifetime. It is endemic to Borneo and Sabah islands.
This blogger has collected several clear photos of Graphium stratiotes and the other Graphiums of southeast Asia and its neighbor islands. They're arranged in alphabetical order, with G. stratiotes at the bottom:
Jamiun has a page devoted exclusively to Graphium stratiotes:
Henry Grose-Smith described the male:
"
Male.— Upperside. White, tinged at the base with pale greenish yellow. Anterior wings with the costal margin and cell crossed by four black fasciae; the basal fascia narrow, the second, third, and fourth wedge-shaped, the fourth extending beyond the discocellular nervules; beyond the fourth fascia is a semitransparent space divided by the discoidal nervules, which are black ; apex broadly black, centred with another transparent space, divided by the black nervules. Posterior wings with exterior margins narrowly black and three black lunate spots near the anal angle; anal area grey, a large bright, quadrangular, carmine spot at the anal angle, bordered on the upperside with black and on the inside on the inner margin with a white linear spot. Tails narrow and black, with white margins.
Underside. Anterior wings as above, tinged at the base with yellowish brown. Posterior wings ochraceous, crossed at the middle and near the base by two black bands, slightly convergent towards the anal angle and extending as far as the greyish-black space above the anal carmine spot; the exterior margin and anal area broadly black, irorated towards the anal angle with grey, the carmine spot as above, the discocellular and median nervules black; two small black spots below the former.
Expanse of wings 3-3/4 inches.
"
If you're familiar with the language of lepidopterists, you should be able to draw an outline of a Graphium, color it in, and get something very similar to this...
Photo by Weishou, October, Sabah island.
Photo by Gancw1, August, Sabah.
There are two subspecies, Graphium stratiotes stratiotes and G.s. sukirmani.
As in many Swallowtail species, males are more easily photographed than females because of their "lekking" or "puddling" behavior. (Lekking refers to unmated male animals' tendency to hang out together; puddling refers more specifically to male butterflies' tendency to hang out at puddles, where they slurp up brackish, bitter, or polluted water containing the mineral salts they need.) Graphium stratiotes don't avoid each other particularly; here are two or three, hanging out with drinking buddies of at least two other Swallowtail species, in a slow-motion video presented as a micro-break for office workers:
This taste for salt can make them "too friendly" with humans hiking through their tropical territory. The one photographed below tried licking a human's hand as well as the sock top shown...
Photo by Simonenderby, October, Sabah.
Males and females also pollinate flowers while sipping nectar.
Photo by Boris1214, in October.
A male Graphium stratiotes leads other butterflies to feast on the fresh mud and sweat on the blue shoes a tourist peels off, beside the river, in this video. After the tourists and their guides have rested, and cleaned their shoes in the cold water enough to climb into kayaks, they paddle into a canyon so narrow and dark it seems almost like a cave.
So far, nobody seems to have published anything about the life cycle of Graphium stratiotes. Google did find a news report in which a student was commended just for studying the population distribution of Swallowtail butterflies, and a copy of her 235-page report (in French so far as I read). Opportunities for other students to be commended for learning about Graphium stratiotes are still wide open.
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