This week's butterfly, Graphium timur, is another species that resembles our Zebra Swallowtails.
Photo from Taylor & Francis.
Interest in this butterfly species has consisted mostly of DNA studies conducted with the hope of working out its relationship to the other black and white striped Graphium species. It was first described as a variant of Graphium tamerlanus.
It is very similar to Graphium eurous and Graphium mullah. Some nature sites, like INaturalist, now consider timur as a subspecies of mullah. It stays on lists because science sites, including PubMed, have listed it as a species.
The species name timur almost certainly commemorates Timur Leng or Tamerlane rather than Timor island. The species, or subspecies, is found in southern China, Laos, and Taiwan.
A few species lists include some more names that come right after timur in alphabetical order:
Graphium tiomanensis was reported as a rare species found only on Tioman island in 1978.
Graphium tiomanus was reported only from Tioman island in 1984.
No photo of either of these species seems to have been published on the Internet. Apparently since they were first described no one else has learned anything about them.
Graphium tistaensis has sometimes been listed as a species. It is usually considered to have been a mistake--giving a species name to a subspecies of Graphium megarus.
Graphium titipu is also found on some lists, but usually regarded as a mistake in which a species name was given to a subspecies of Graphium evemon.
Graphium tigris is found on some lists too. There is confusion about what this species name refers to; some online sources guess that it would have been an Asian relative of our Tiger Swallowtails, and at least one page assigns it to something that obviously is not a Graphium at all. The species name was originally given to an "aberrant form" of Graphium antiphates,
Not enough has been published online about any of these five species, if they are species, to make a blog post.
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