Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Timur, and Some Others Found Only on Long Lists

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. 

https://archive.org/details/entomologischeze24191011inte/page/252/mode/1up

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. 

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Tamerlana

First, to get it out of the way, let's mention that some older lists mention a species Graphium taliensis. This is no longer considered a distinct species. Conveniently, it's now considered a subspecies of Graphium tamerlana (sometimes tamerlanus), which comes next to it alphabetically.

Photo by Zhangqianyi, taken in May at a place whose name Zhangqianyi typed into Inaturalist.org in Chinese. It seems to share that taste so many Graphiums have for the color blue.

Graphium tamerlana is one of those Chinese zebra-striped Swallowtails that are being reclassified. Few web sites are showing much information about it at the time of writing. We can safely say that it was named by Charles Oberthur in 1876. In the tradition of naming Swallowtail species after characters from literature, he named it after a legendary war chief whose name probably sounded something like Demur or Timur. Timur walked with a limp and was called Timur Leng, which both sounds and means something like Timur the Lame. People said the name differently in different places. In the eighteenth century most English-speaking people had read or seen a performance of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and in the nineteenth century they had read Poe's poem "Tamerlane." Today, since other people use those names, many prefer to call the Mongolian war chief Timur. There is also a butterfly called Graphium timur. We'll meet it in June.

We can safely say that, when Oberthur named the butterfly, some people pointed out that it looked an awful lot like Graphium alebion. Walter Rothschild defended the claim that it was a distinct species:

"

The specimen figured by Elmer {I.e.) is tamerlanus Obeith. and not alebion Gray, and I do not believe that the patria '• Nordchina " which Eimer gives to his alebion (not Gray's) is correct. This mistake in the identification accounts for his considering tamerlanus to be " ein einfacher alebion.''

P. alebion and tamerlanus have the discoidal cell to the hindwings much broader, especially so in its apical half, than any other species of the present group.

The chief characters by which P. alebion and tamerlanus can be distinguished from each other are as follows : —

The hindwings of P. alebion are much more produced in the caudal region, and are, therefore, much narrower than those of P. tamerlanus; the anal yellow mark to the hindwings of P. tamerlanus is at least three times as broad (transversally) as long, and divided (or almost so) into two spots by the black lower median nervule, while in P. alebion that mark is about as long as broad (and therefore much larger than in P. tamerlanus), and not divided into two spots; the postcellular portions of the subbasal and median black lines, which form a very conspicuous angle on both sides of the hindwings, are in P. alebion proportionally shorter than in P. tamerlanus.

Though I have seen a large number of specimens of P. tamerlanus, and have compared about twenty specimens of alebion, I have never met with intermediate examples. The shape of the hindwings and the yellow anal mark are so conspicuously different in alebion and tamerlanus that there is at present no reason to unite these Papilios into one species.

Hah. Western China.

"

Another expert opined that to him Graphium (then Papilio) tamerlanus looked much more like G. glycerion than like Graphium alebion. 

https://archive.org/details/tudesdentomolo02ober/page/13/mode/1up

So it seems to have been accepted as a species. It seems not to be very common, but so little is known about it that, even about its population size, it's hard to be sure.

Its genus name has been through some changes. At first all Swallowtails were classified as one genus, Papilio. Then that genus list was decluttered by classifying some groups of Swallowtails as separate genera, such as Graphium. The genus names Cosmodesmas and Iphiclides were proposed for this species along the way. Considering how many Graphiums there are and how they seem to fit into a few distinct sub-groups, some want to promote the sub-genus name Pazala into the genus name.

This butterfly has been celebrated on a postage stamp:

You can buy one from http://146.148.72.216/thing.php .

It is comfortable at high altitudes, found between about 800 and 1500 m, 2600 and 5000 feet, above sea level.

There are three subspecies: Graphium tamerlana tamerlana is found mostly in Moupin, China; G.t. taliensis is found in Tali and Junnan, China; and G.t. kansuensis is found around Kansu, Tsinglingschan, and Peilingschan, China. This beautiful photo essay does not have space to discuss the differences among subspecies.

https://collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/2408/graphium-pazala-species-guide

Photo by Arex, also in May, also in a place with a Chinese name. It seems to like shallow white flowers. Long though their coiled probosces are, many Swallowtails stick to shallow flowers because their probosces are shorter than other butterflies'.

As in so many cases, little is known about Chinese butterflies. China's focus on economic growth has come at some cost to plant and animal species not found in any other part of the world. It would probably be profitable, in the long run, for Chinese people to study and document their wildlife before they risk destroying its habitat. Graphium tamerlanus and the other black-and-white Graphiums that seem uniquely Chinese are a great big opportunity for Chinese people to become famous.

Photo by Arex, also in May, also in a place with a Chinese name. This one seems to like damp sand, so it's probably a male, sipping bitter or salty water to get the minerals he needs to be able to mate. In the mating process he will transfer a supply of mineral salts to the female, who can thus afford to have more delicate tastes and, in most Swallowtail species, only ever drinks flower nectar and fresh clear water.  

And...? Are these butterflies averse to being around others of their kind, as butterflies are when their host plant is scarce, or likely to seek safety in numbers, as butterflies do when their host plant is abundant? Do the eggs, larvae, and pupae look just like Graphium alebion's or Graphium sichuanensis's, or do they surprisingly look more like those of Graphium weiskei? Do the butterflies generally fly for a week, a month, all summer? How many generations do they have in a year? What do they eat? Nobody seems to know. 

Who knows how useful it might be for the world to know these things.

Book Review: One In One Out

Title: One In One Out

Author: S.R. Mallery

Date: 2024

Quote: "[T]he anxious mother scurried through the streets of Beijing to place her little one on their local church's front steps."

For a few years before and after the turn of the present century, China's government tried to force people to do the public-spirited thing and have one child or none. Birth control devices are only 95 to 98 percent effective; they often disappoint young people who can't afford a child, and one type is especially likely to disappoint a couple who have just had one child. So, while her daughter Huan is still a baby, Fen gives birth to another daughter she calls Ning. 

This family are not based on a specific person. Hundreds of families were in their situation. They are "typical" of one type of family who put a child up for adoption overseas. While some of these families didn't want children anyway, others wished they could keep two or more children and often thought of the children they had given up. Fen is that sort of mother. And, while some of the Chinese-American children just enjoyed being American, Ning wanted to know more about her family of origin. Easy though it is for people to be lost in a city the size of Beijing, as soon as she's old enough Ning wants to go to Beijing and search for her real mother.

This is hardly a book so much as a teaching story, aimed at readers a little younger than most of the Chinese-American children would be by now. (Most of them are legally adults.) If you are, or you have a foster or adoptive sibling who is, Chinese-American and your family are not Chinese-American, you too might want to try to find your original family. If they left clues to help you, they may want to be found. If you do find your physical relatives, you may like them. The story is very simple, perhaps overly optimistic. 

Butterfly of the Week: Blue Triangle or Common Bluebottle

Last week's butterfly was one of the least known Graphiums; this week's has been called the most familiar Graphium in southern Asia and Australia. They don't look alike, but are close enough to deceive the uninformed. (That is: if people who try to buy Graphium sandawanum bodies online, which is illegal, get anything that remotely resembles G. sandawanum, they are likely to get G. sarpedon.) The Blue Triangle or Common Bluebottle is well known from Australia to India and on the islands in between. If you have limited memory, this post may crash your browser due to its length and number of pictures.

This popular butterfly's genome has been mapped--in the US, where it doesn't live.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/genome/GCA_018246115.1/

Photo by Sarab Seth. As in many Swallowtail species, the males crave mineral salts and gather on wet sand to sip brackish water. Some males are true composters who also drink the liquids from fresh dung and carrion; most of this species get adequate minerals from seawater on beaches. Generous quantities of minerals in their diet prepare them to mate, during which process the male transfers minerals to the female, who absorbs them from contact with the male and so normally gets all the minerals she needs without having to drink anything but sweet nectar and clear water. Males "eat" nectar and drink clear water too.

Photo by SL_Liew, March, Singapore. They'll hang out with other Graphiums...

...or with smaller species; they're not snobs. Photo by Geechartier, November, Cambodia.

This Indian video, though short, seems to pack a solid message about the butterfly's status. Even a butterfly that is "in the top position" on lists of butterflies has an ambivalent status in some Indian and Asian cultures. Butterflies can be seen as souls that deserved to come back as composter animals and be eaten by birds. This butterfly is clearly a composter, an attendant to the cow, who is seen as the embodiment of giving. The butterfly may not yet have become an admirable soul, yet it has its place in the scheme of things. 

https://www.indiavideo.org/kerala/land-and-people/flora-and-fauna/wildlife/butterflies/common-blue-bottle-548.php

Like many Swallowtail species this one gets its scientific name from a character, or several characters, in literature. The name seems to have meant "one in the top position" and been given as a title before it was used as a name. Apparently one Sarpedon was a defeated contender for the throne of Crete. He may or may not be the same one who, according to another story, lost a fight with another warrior over a teenaged boy with whom both men were infatuated. Probably a different Sarpedon was a warrior prince in the Iliad, where he's called the son of Zeus. Other sources say the one who fought in the Trojan War was a grandson of the one who was a son of Zeus. Greek and Roman Pagans sometimes used this kind of phrase as a metaphor, describing any man with some outstanding quality. (When the Roman soldier observed that Jesus "was the son of a god" he was not confessing that he'd converted to Judaism or Christianity--yet; he probably meant what a person of Irish descent would have called "a man you don't meet every day.") Any of these legendary men may have been worshipped as a god, though his name came from a title given to local deities and their temples; there were temples of Apollo Sarpedonios and Artemis Sarpedonia. 

Though butterflies are hardly warriors, Graphium sarpedon can fairly be placed "in the top position" on several lists of butterfly species. Most widespread. Strongest survivor. Most widely loved. Most often photographed at social media sites. Most tolerated by humans even though, at all stages of life, it may feed on plants humans cultivate.

As an index of its popularity we find, just for example, that although it's not found in French-speaking countries it has a French name, le voilier bleu. 

This butterfly can legally be killed and sold as a collector's item, or even a decorative item preserved in resin, and it is. Commercial links for Graphium sarpedon also show it featuring in posters and even jigsaw puzzles. It has been celebrated on postage stamps:

At the time of writing, about a month before publication, this unseparated pair of stamps was up for sale on Ebay (US$8.89). The link, probably no longer working, was https://www.ebay.com/itm/375997635851 .

Perhaps the most appealing commercial exploitation of this butterfly that I found was that it's featured in a bird-oriented infomercial article about a series of cameras that are being advertised:

Photo by Libor Vaicenbacher, zooming in on a normal image of Graphium sarpedon for the article: 

https://photographylife.com/the-real-life-sharpness-of-nikon-telephoto-lenses

From the butterflies' point of view, the most ominous potential exploitation was the hint that their peculiar blue-green pigment might be used in chemical tests for counterfeit money:

https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.202600049?af=R

Matdona0 discovered, while chasing a Graphium sarpedon for this video, that butterfly chasing can be a hazardous sport. Well, yes...as we've discussed earlier, the multicaudate Bhutanitis swallowtails of the Himalayas are said to have "blood on their wings" because people chasing them fell down cliffs... Humans are not built to chase butterflies. We are built to psych them out. We learn where to find the ones we want to photograph. We settle, however reluctantly, for pictures of male butterflies at their puddle parties until someone finds a way to document the life cycle in a garden.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPnleetj6LX/

Many subspecies and a few variant forms have been recognized: 

Graphium sarpedon adonarensis

Adonara and a few other small islands. This subspecies has only recently been recognized, has not yet been recognized by all sources, and is little known. Could you find Adonara on a map? I couldn't either, but people live there, so let's learn something. Adonara is one of three small islands east of Flores, in Indonesia, that are sometimes called the Solor Archipelago (Solor is the southernmost of these islands and Lembata is the other one). Adonara is a volcanic island whose central volcano is still considered active. Though it used to be nicknamed the Island of Murderers, it now welcomes tourists. According to NASA you can see Adonara and its volcano, Ile Boleng, from space. Both the indigenous people and the indigenous Graphium sarpedon consider themselves just noticeably different from the rest of their species.

Graphium sarpedon agusyantoei

Sumatra island. Only one source mentioned in passing that this subspecies name exists. It sounds like a local place name.

Graphium sarpedon cellamaculosa

India. "Graphium sarpedon with a spot in the cell." Found often enough to be named, but believed to be an aberrant form rather than a true subspecies, this butterfly has a small white spot in the dark area toward the foremost edge of the fore wing. Discussed in a short paper that's been published online as a free PDF:

https://www.entosocindia.org/storage/app/public/article/pdf/sxogOmlqwdPfUjNtKyN8wHTfUW4bTr8hKD64rcOS.pdf

Graphium sarpedon choredon 

Eastern Australia. Also listed as G. anthedon choredon and as Graphium choredon, a separate species. The name may mean "separate" and refer to the butterflies' separating themselves from the other Graphiums they resemble. Australians include them as Blue Triangles. This web site considered them separately at https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2024/12/butterfly-of-week-blue-triangle.html/. Rothschild said that the difference is that choredon have broader fore wings and shorter hind wings than sarpedon but gave no firm rule for measuring the proportions and classifying an individual butterfly as one species or the other. 

Graphium sarpedon connectens 

China, Taiwan. The name means "connecting, linking, joining together" in Latin. In this video by David Tai, some connectens share a puddle with Graphium doson postianus: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqVg1OiBqM0

Photo by Hsburgman, October, Taiwan.

Graphium sarpedon colus

Palawan and Balabac islands in the Philippines.

Graphium/Papilio sarpedon dodingensis

Northern Molucca islands. Rothschild said it was distinguished by having a narrower bluish band across the upper wings and an extra red spot on the hind wings. Nobody else seems to have noticed this. Or they may have identified it with Graphium milon and/or monticolus as distinct species.

Graphium sarpedon impar 

The island of New Georgia in the Solomons. Rothschild and some other sources accept this as a subspecies, resembling isander but always having an extra white spot and usually having more red on its hind wings.

Graphium sarpedon imparilis 

New Britain and a few other small islands. Rothschild included this one as a subspecies; few later sources have done. Its dark sections are darker than other subspecies and it is more likely to have a white or blue-green spot in one, but only one, of three positions, which Rothschild described in https://archive.org/details/novitateszoologi02lond/page/443/mode/1up . All recognizable specimens of this color pattern that Rothschild saw were male. 

Graphium sarpedon isander 

Guadalcanal and other islands. The name is derived from Greek isos, "equal," and ander, "man," and generally translated as "defender, liberator," one who restores the equal status of an oppressed group of people. In Greek it appears as a short form of Alexander and commemorates one of the greatest warlords in human history. Hailing Alexander as a liberator from a previous monarch nobody liked is standard practice for defeated nations, but the fact really was that Alexander was too busy proving he could defeat other warlords to hang around oppressing private citizens. He did very little actual ruling. So in a sense he really did liberate and equalize people...and he was loved.

Nobody seems to have photographed this subspecies. Rothschild described its distinguishing feature as having the spots of light color slightly out of line, rather than blending together to form a continuous even band across fore and hind wings. Some individuals also have spots at the outer edges of the fore wings, as well as the hind wings.

Graphium sarpedon islander 

Vietnam. Since Vietnam's territory does not include and has not historically included significant islands, this is probably a misreading of isander. The butterflies are found on little Con Son island (among other subspecies); they are also found on the mainland. Some sources use isander and islander as synonyms. However, some respectable sources favor islander as the spelling. See isander.

Some lovely, clear photos of Graphium sarpedon in Vietnam are at 

https://butterfliesvietnam.blogspot.com/2015/07/56-graphium-sarpedon-common-bluebottle.html

Graphium sarpedon jugans / kawaimitsuoi

Sumba and perhaps nearby small islands. Rothschild recognized this rare, smaller butterfly as smaller, with shorter hind wings and a slightly different tail end, and more likely to have an extra greenish spot on the fore wings, than nearby sarpedon. Since his time most writers seem to have ignored this rarity or considered it as an aberrant form, but some persist in recognizing it, sometimes as a whole separate species since the different shape of the tail end would at least encourage individuals to mate with one another rather than breeding back into sarpedon. It is sometimes listed as Graphium jugans kawaimitsuoi.

Graphium sarpedon luctatius 

Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Nepal, Sikkim, Myanmar, Yunnan, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, sometimes even Australia. Most of Inaturalist's photos of this species come from Singapore. The name may be a mistake for Lucretius or Lutatius, both of which were the names of real people in Roman history. Several photos in this article show G.s. luctatius but you might also enjoy watching a short video by Paul Hampton of a lone male luctatius flitting and sipping at wet sand, available as a sort of promotion for Shutterstock: 

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-1013350487-common-bluebottle-butterfly-graphium-sarpedon-luctatius-papilionidae

Aberrant individuals in Thailand show both albinism and failure to develop the blue patches at all:

https://yutaka.it-n.jp/pap/11400010.html

Graphium sarpedon lycianus 

This may be an older name; no information about where the subspecies was found appeared at the site where the name was listed. The name plays on words. Some of the Greek mythological characters called Sarpedon lived, at least for part of their lives, in a place called Lycia.

Graphium sarpedon messogis 

Indonesia, Solomon Islands, New Guinea. In Greek literature Messogis was a place.

Graphium sarpedon milon 

Sulawesi island. Scientists debate whether to count this as a subspecies of G. sarpedon, or of G. anthedon, or as a separate species. This web site discussed it at https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2025/11/butterfly-of-week-milons-graphium.html.

Photo by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sanchez for Wikimedia Commons.

Males in this species, or group of species, have "scent folds" of long hairs that hold the insects' special scent. When courting females they flap about with their wings spread wide and these hairs forming a sort of halo behind them, as documented in the photo by Garry Sankowsky of Queensland, at

https://collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/365/graphium-sarpedon-scent-fold-hairs

The breeze carries the male's scent to the female. Humans describe it as vaguely "unpleasant," though not so overpowering that everyone who watches these butterflies mentions having noticed a scent, but presumably to the female of the species it smells tolerable. At least she knows whether the creatire flapping around her is the right kind of butterfly to ensure the optimal hatch rate for her eggs. Female Swallowtails usually seem to be in a hurry to get their eggs ripened and laid as fast as possible--they could usually stand to lose a few unflattering milligrams--so if the male is the right kind they'll probably mate.

Graphium sarpedon monticolus 

Or G. anthedon monticolus, or just Graphium monticolus. Also Sulawesi and other islands, Indonesia's Lore Lindu park. The name is also found as monticola or monticolum. It means "of the little hills"; this butterfly frequents low hills, while milon favors flat land and beaches. For a butterfly that's easily found on islands with relatively high human populations, this one is remarkably obscure. Almost nothing is known about its habits or life cycle, or whether it's a true species, a subspecies, or a variant population.

Graphium sarpedon morius

Japan. In this case morius probably refers to a place name such as Mori-machi or the Mori Museum.

Photo by Li17kw, May, Japan. 

Graphium sarpedon nipponum 

Japan. Nipponum means "from Japan." Some authors spell the subspecies name nipponus, a quibble about Latin grammar, or nipporum, a mistake.

Photo by Norio_Nomura, September, Japan.

Graphium sarpedon pagus

Philippines. Pagus means "rural, of the fields." 

Photo by Astronorm, September, Baguio (Philippines).

Graphium sarpedon parsedon

Sunda islands. Rothschild described this subspecies as having the band of color as broad as G.s. sarpedon and the tails even longer than G.s. teredon. He later wrote that he no longer thought it was a distinct subspecies, but just a freshly emerged sarpedon whose hind wings had not fully expanded. Apparently the little points among the scallops at the corners of the hind wings expand first and the rest of the wings fill in later as the butterflies unfold their new wings.

Graphium sarpedon phyris

Sipora and Siberut. Described only by Jordan, 1937. He said it had narrower and more bluish-colored green bands above and bigger red spots below. Subsequent writers seem to have either ignored this rare variation or deemed it insignificant. 

Graphium sarpedon punctata 

India. "Graphium sarpedon with a point or mark." This one has a small black spot in the pale area of the forewing. It's also common enough to be named but not common enough to be considered a subspecies; it's just a variant form. Discussed at 

https://www.entosocindia.org/storage/app/public/article/pdf/sxogOmlqwdPfUjNtKyN8wHTfUW4bTr8hKD64rcOS.pdf

Graphium sarpedon rufocellularis

"Graphium sarpedon with a red cell." Fruhstorfer described this variation only in German and didn't say where he'd found it. More recent writers seem to have ignored it.

Graphium sarpedon rufofervidus 

Nias island. Described only by Fruhstorfer and only in German. "Graphium sarpedon warm red."

Graphium sarpedon sarpedon 

India, SriLanka.

Photo by Sandipoutsider for Wikipedia.

Graphium sarpedon sarpedonides 

Japan, but sources that list this name list it with a question mark, as if uncertain whether it is still used or ought to be. Sarpedonides means "Sarpedon's son."

Graphium sarpedon semifasciatus 

China. The name means "half-banded." The distinguishing feature is that the band of light color is short or missing on the hind wings. They looked to the old naturalists like a different species--except that they mix freely with other sarpedon. 

Photo by K. Saito for https://yutaka.it-n.jp/pap/11400001.html .

Graphium sarpedon sirkari

Described and proposed as a subspecies only in 2013. Sirkari presumably means "from Sirkar," but the description I saw did not specify a location.

Graphium sarpedon teredon

India, Sri Lanka. In ancient literature Teredon was a place, thought to be in what became Kuwait. Some list Graphium teredon as a separate species. Rothschild describes its distinction as consisting of having a narrower band of blue-green, with the foremost spot on the fore wings sometimes missing and sometimes replaced by a stray white spot at the front of the fore wings. It also comes closer than other closely related species and subspecies do to having real tails on its hind wings. 

Photo by Vinayaraj for Wikipedia.

Graphium sarpedon timorensis 

Timor and Wetter island. Rothschild described this one as having different proportions of spots on the fore wings, the front spots being bigger and the ones further back narrower, producing more of an even stripe. It also comes close to having real "swallow tails." The spots on the underwings are also slightly different, and, finally, Rothschild said, the shape of the last segment on the body is different. Mercifully for readers, his editors wouldn't give him space for a drawing of the butterfly's back end.

Graphium sarpedon toxopei

Yet another name that appears on one list with no explanation of where the subspecies is found or when or why it was named.

Graphium sarpedon wetterensis 

Indonesia and other islands, including Wetter Island. 

Finally, Funet.fi, the source on which I usually rely to make sense of subspecies names, lists several subspecies names that were used when the species was called Papilio sarpedon. Matsumura, writing in 1929, gave Japanese names to some variant forms for which other writers have ignored either the Japanese subspecies names or the whole pattern of variation. Fruhstorfer used subspecies names corycus, melas, and temnus, which have also been generally ignored.

Since this species seems unlikely to be endangered, it's been studied--in the sense of dissected--by many researchers for many reasons. Its proportionately huge eyes, for instance, are believed to contain fifteen different kinds of photoreceptor cells analogous to the three kinds of "cone" cells in most human eyes. It probably sees a lot of things humans either don't see, or don't see as different from one another. Variations in the iridescence and reflectivity of its wings may have meaning for this butterfly that humans have no way to recognize. It seems to be able to see ultraviolet, violet, three shades of blue, blue-green, four shades of green, and five shades of red as primary colors. Since most humans can see secondary colors well enough for practical purposes, why do the butterflies need to see them as primary colors? Nature can be extravagant. Some think the butterflies' extra color receptors see movement or shading better than human eyes do, in the way that "tetrachromatic" eyes seem to work for a minority of humans, but humans really have no way to know.

The blue colors seen in most birds' and butterflies' wings are iridescent effects; the color in Blue Triangles' wings is variable because of iridescent effects, but the wings always look blue because they contain a blue pigment called sarpedobilin. The pigmented wing scales on the upper wing surface are described, by those who've examined them under a microscope, as "bristles" and the smoother, more reflective, clear scales directly below them are described as "glassy." 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20435824/

The National Institute of Health stores butterfly research on the chance that some biochemical found in a butterfly will be used in medicine, and in fact Graphium sarpedon is used to make some homeopathic remedies. The best thing that can be said for most homeopathic remedies is that, when used in proper homeopathic doses, they're not known to be harmful, and this apparently seems to be the case with remedies derived from Graphium sarpedon. Swallowtail butterflies are toxic if consumed internally but this species seems to be less toxic than the ones that live on Aristolochia vines.

They like a variety of white, pink, red, yellow, orange, and even bright blue-violet flowers, all with rather small shallow blossoms because, as butterflies go, they have relatively short tongues.

Photo by Plaintiger, May, Singapore.

Some of them seem to be attracted to anything bright blue or blue-green.

Photo by Davis1003, January, Taiwan. When they are chased around their favorite forests, when the butterflies naturally prefer to fly about the level of trees' blossoms anyway, these butterflies seem almost impossible to photograph. Those who snap unusual photos let the butterflies come to them.

These Swallowtails are known for their "skipping" flight. Their relatively fubsy faces, with short knobbed antennae, short tongues, and big eyes, are also reminiscent of the lowly, amusing Skipper butterfly family. 

Males and females may look alike (at least to humans), except that young females are full of eggs, or females may be just slightly paler. Wingspans vary from 3 to 4 inches--a little bigger than the largest butterflies found in most of the United States, not a lot, not necessarily bigger than our Monarchs, Dianas, or Giant Swallowtails. Females' wings tend to span about a quarter-inch wider than males' but subspecies, diet, and season also influence these butterflies' size. 

The life cycle of this butterfly is tidily documented at 

https://butterflycircle.blogspot.com/2009/01/life-history-of-common-bluebottle.html

...but I have fair-use photos of each stage of its cycle, so why steer you off site?

Photo by Donnamd, July, Taiwan.

Photo by Bluebottle77, December, Singapore. This butterfly places her egg at the tip of the growing stalk where the caterpillar can hatch onto a fresh, tender leaf, though some other butterflies photographed at Inaturalist weren't so particular. Both males and females are attracted to the nectar of flowers on the plants their caterpillars can eat, but females are more strongly attracted to their host plants' aromatic leaves.

Photo by Creek_Chen, September, Taiwan.

Their favorite food plants are cinnamon trees (genus Cinnamomum); they also like Asian laurels (genus Litsea) and can eat several other plants and trees: Alseodaphne semecarpefolia, Polyalthia longifolia, Michelia doltospa, Miliusa tomentosa, Persea macrantha. In Singapore they are also said to eat Lindera lucida and Neolitsea zeylonica, and in Australia some species in the genus Clerodendrum. Like the other Swallowtails they never become a real pest, but the caterpillars are ugly enough that some people consider them a nuisance. In fact, in Brisbane one species of Cinnamomum is considered a non-native weed, and if anything, more sophisticated gardeners and farmers may wish Graphium sarpedon would deviate from the norm for Swallowtails and kill its host plant. (It doesn't.)

Additional food plants sometimes used by both caterpillars and adults are listed at 

https://bugs-alive.blogspot.com/2018/05/graphium-sarpedon-datasheet.html

Early stage caterpillars are little dark brown things with harmless stiff bristles that have to make them harder for predators to swallow. (Hatchlings are often lighter brown, darkening as they grow.) They are somewhat slug-shaped and are conspicuously "sluggish" at all stages.

Photo by Caligin, October, Singapore. The photo is blurry because at this stage the caterpillar is about a quarter-inch long.

Photo by Takuyatamura, May, Japan. A brown or black color may be better camouflage than green on the new leaves the baby caterpillar eats.

Photo by Nbasargin, December, Singapore. (A different year. Tropical caterpillars change skins in less than a week.) Plenty of melanin left in his skin but, at this picklelike phase, the chlorophyll in his diet is starting to show.

Photo by Tiwane, January, Singapore. Now the caterpillar is well camouflaged.

Photo by Geechartier, June, Cambodia. Predators may think any of four pairs of spots on the forward section are eyes. The working eyes are on the underside, facing the leaf. In its last caterpillar skin, with the bristles replaced by dots of color, the insect may be almost two inches long.

Photo by Buxiaotiao, October, China. All known Swallowtail caterpillars have a humped back that stores a damp, fleshy, erectile appendage called the osmeterium, or stink horns. Some species pop out their "horns" easily, some only when they feel very stressed. This one is rolling sidewise, imitating a snake whose forked "tongue" is sensing the best place to bite. It has no real defense except for being unpalatable and indigestible to most other animals; it's bluffing. Fortunately, so was Buxiaotiao, who posted this photo to Inaturalist as part of a series showing that person was rearing the caterpillar as a science project.

Butterfly pupae don't move much but they do wriggle out of their abandoned caterpillar skins. Photo by Bobohog, November, China.

Photo by Klearad, August, Singapore. The pupa is stuck to the underside of the leaf.

Photo by Ziki_Eschsbp, October, Malaysia. 

Photo by Zii_Eschsbp, October, Malaysia. The whole process from egg to adult takes about a month, 28 to 32 days, and seems to be going on somewhere during every month of the year.

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Phidias

Passing quickly over Graphium pelopidas, which is still found on some lists but usually classified as a subspecies of Graphium leonidas, 

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2025/09/butterfly-of-week-common-veined-graphium.html

we come to Graphium phidias, named after the sculptor credited with supervising the building of the Parthenon in ancient Greece. 

Photo by Nicholas Jason.

It is found in only a small part of the world, the corner where China, Laos, and Vietnam meet. Like most animals specific to that habitat, it's been very poorly documented. Although its coloration may interest artists, scientists who've written anything about it have mostly been interested in how to fit it into a theory of macroevolution. It has "swallow tails," but very thin ones, more like the Hairstreaks than like the other Swordtails, so it must represent the point at which tailed Swordtails evolved into tailless Ladies, or maybe vice versa...

This web site is sorry that macroevolution is speculation, not science, and thus hard for this web site to take seriously. Macroevolution evolved to assuage the cognitive dissonance experienced by people who try to study the living world while denying that it has a Creator. The position of this web site is that those people would feel better if they sat down and made a list of all the things they've done that harmed other people, and then set about making restitution to those people, giving themselves a chance to understand the Higher Power in whatever way they can. The Graphium species are similar enough that some of them may have microevolved into or out of others, but what benefit would there be in knowing that they did, if they did? Why can't more scientists come to terms with the fact that it's not possible to know everything in a scientific way, and, if either creation or macroevolution can mean anything to anybody, they have to be understood by faith rather than science?

Some scientists prefer to use the subgenus name Arisbe or Paranticopsis for phidias, though they don't agree on which one to use. More than its op-art stripes make this a peculiar-looking butterfly. The species name has sometimes been given as akikoae, and a 2007 paper even gave what seems to have been the same butterfly a new species name, muhabbet. 

This photo by K. Saito shows the subspecies, G.p. obscurium, which has much smaller orange spots on the hind wings.

Adam Cotton says that the reason why they're so seldom seen is that their preferred altitude is over 

1,500m, about 5,000 feet, above sea level, and they fly for only a week or two each year. He says that males sometimes come down to altitudes as low as 500m to gather at puddles. Females make themselves hard to find, but males sometimes visit their favorite spots in numbers--five or ten at a time.

Nothing is known about the life cycle of this species. Opportunities for southeast Asian students to become famous are wide open.

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Mullah

This week's butterfly seems remarkably poorly documented because many entomologists have  adopted a revised taxonomic list of Asian Graphium species. While the species name Graphium mullah has been in use for a while, the little that's been documented about it is being revised to reflect the recent reclassification of Graphium timur as a subspecies of G. mullah, which only a few years ago was fully separated from G. alebion. DNA studies, rather than field studies, have been followed in reclassification:

https://umcms.um.edu.my/sites/ioes-v2/Publication/isi/publication/2025/Apr%20_2025/28.-%20Lim%20PE%20-%20Journal%20of%20Asia-Pacific%20Entomology%2C%2028%3B102355.pdf

It is found in China, Japan, Laos, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Photo by Tref, who notes that it was taken in March. Butterflies are important pollinators for some flowers and trees, including some trees whose fruit humans eat.

Photo from Dearlep.tw. Subspecies have been identified; a clear explanation of the latest subspecies list has yet to appear online. Some mullahs' wings are clear white and some are tinged with bright yellow. 

Graphium mullah differs from Graphium garhwalica in having bigger, brighter yellow spots on the upper side of hind wings. Sometimes these spots are also conspicuous on the under side. Its black stripes are a little more conspicuous, too. Its upper wings can lose their scales and become transparent especially in that wide border section along  their outside edge. 

Photo by Tref, taken in March. Males gather at puddles or on wet sand and sip water. They are photographed doing this alone, with others of their own species, or with others of different species. 

Photo by Sonata_z, taken in March. Another Graphium seems to be attracted to anything, even plastic waste, that has a sky-blue color. 

Photo by Yancai, taken in April in China. This seems to be an earlier instar than 

Photo by Jiuheng92, taken in May in China. No photo of the egg or pupa was found.

Butterfly of the Week: Spotted Zebra

Graphium megarus is black or dark brown and white, so some people wanted to call it a Zebra. "It looks more spotted than striped," someone must have said. "Well, there we are...a Spotted Zebra!" 

Photo from Thai Butterfly Trips.

Most often associated with China,  also found in several Asian countries and even in Australia, the Spotted Zebra is not believed to be endangered. It's called common in China and rare in India. In India it is protected by law.

Megarus was a character in ancient Greek mythic history, said to have been the founder of the city-state called Megara and its surrounding territory, Megaris. The most logical reason for naming this butterfly after him is the tradition of naming Swallowtail species after characters in literature. 

Photo from Thelittleman. Males do some composting, but both sexes pollinate.

Photo by Janmar, taken in March in Thailand. Males sip water from shallow puddles, alone or in large mixed flocks.

Some instructive photos of Graphium megarus at puddle parties with look-alike species are at:

https://butterfliesvietnam.blogspot.com/2017/05/trip-to-ba-be-national-park.html

https://ronorenstein.blogspot.com/2014/07/thailand-butterfly-portraits.html

These butterflies live in damp tropical forests, where they fly high among the treetops. They like evergreen forests with red sandy soil and a good deal of rainfall. Caterpillars eat leaves of small trees in the Annonaceae family.

They most often fly in March and April. Adult wingspans range from two to three inches. Though large by North American standards, this is the smallest species in the Graphium subgenus Paranticopsis. The Paranticopsis species are thought to be mimics of the Danaid genus Parantica; thus, aside from their Swallowtail wing structure and iridescent pale blue to white spots, in some ways they look more like our Monarchs than like our Swallowtails. 

Males and females look alike; if there are consistent visible differences they are slight and have not been documented.

Different subspecies have been identified including Graphium megarus megarus, G.m. megapenthes, G.m. fleximacula, G.m. martinus, G.m. mendicus, G.m. sagittiger, G.m. tiomanensis, G.m. tistaensis. G.m. similis, and G.m. marthae. Not all sources recognize any or all of these as distinct subspecies. Rothschild, for example, recognized only megarus and fleximacula as distinct subspecies:

https://archive.org/details/novitateszoologi02lond/page/460/mode/1up?view=theater

Differences in wing patterns certainly exist, but how consistently they are found in specific places is debated.

Graphium megarus megarus: 

Photo by Milind_bhakare, taken in April in India.

Graphium megarus megapenthes:

Photo by Oleg Sartorin, taken in March in Thailand.

The early stages of this species' life seem undocumented in cyberspace. 

Butterfly of the Week: Leech's Graphium

This week's butterfly has an unfortunate name. As you probably knew, the leech or bloodsucker is a sort of worm that attaches itself to people who wade or swim through infested water. People used to hope that diseases could be cured by draining out the infected blood--bleeding did seem to bring down fevers and subdue extroversion--so doctors used to keep leeches and carry them around to apply to sick patients. Though this treatment probably didn't cure anyone and may have killed some people, at the time it was considered an honest living, and "Leech" became a respectable family name. Eventually an obscure butterfly found in China and Vietnam was named after a naturalist called J.H. Leech--Graphium leechi. The butterfly does not suck blood. It's not even especially eager to lick sweat.

Photo by Rosefan2, taken in July in China.

Photos of living butterflies do not often show whether the males have furry scent folds along the inside edges of the hind wings. Museum specimens show this feature better. It is one of the ways naturalists can tell Graphium leechi from some similar-looking species; Graphium evemon have small scent folds, Graphium bathycles have no visible scent folds, and Graphium leechi have large conspicuous scent folds. Museum images for many Graphiums, including leechi, are available at Yutaka-it:

https://yutaka.it-n.jp/pap/13200001.html

What it does eat is unknown. That is, adults sip nectar, apparently preferring white flowers, and caterpillars eat leaves, but nobody has published an official document identifying which species. Because China and Vietnam have not paid researchers to study butterflies, much remains to be learned, although Graphium leechi is not hard to find and photograph. Its genome has been mapped, but has anyone documented its life cycle?

Photo by Yzcitic_zj. This looks like a pregnant (some prefer "gravid" for egg-laying insects) female, whose coloring conforms with the general tendency for female Swallowtails to have bigger, stronger wings with better camouflaged colors than males of their species. Is she choosing a food plant for her offspring? If so, Graphium leechi may be able to live on a different kind of leaves than any other Graphium species. Graphiums generally live on the indigestible leaves of plants in the Annonaceae family, but some Swallowtails can eat the less toxic leaves of plants in the Rutaceae family--mints, which have shapes like the plant shown above.

Photo by Kaivictor, also taken in July in China.

We can see that males, as in many Swallowtail species, need mineral salts and spend some time composting polluted water. Algae and litter in the water are probably part of the attraction for these butterflies. In gregarious species, where males spend a lot of time hanging out in flocks at puddles, females often hang out on the edges of the male groups. Instincts tell the male butterflies that they need to slurp up a certain amount of minerals in order to be able to mate, and the females that they can meet their need for minerals by mating so that all they have to drink is flower nectar and clean water. 

A photo at Inaturalist, not included here, documents a male Graphium leechi's attraction to a puddle in which a toad had been run over. Some Wikipedia editor has, for reasons of per own, chosen to use this as the main photo for this species on Wikipedia, though dozens of prettier and more informative photos are available. Many photos document the species' attraction to wet pavement--with residues of oil and lead from motor traffic and possibly still manure from animal-drawn traffic. There are reasons why the Bible classified the butterfly as an unclean animal. Photos do not show this species clinging to sweat-soaked shirts or socks, as some Graphiums have been caught doing, but do show it licking people's fingers...and two photos at Inaturalist show a naturalist who had obviously observed what else the butterfly had been licking, holding it up to pose on a rubber glove!

Photo by Nj_sam, taken in July in China. They'd really rather be pollinating.

Photo by Xuc, taken in April. 

Three subspecies are recognized: aprilis, leechi, and yunnana. The subspecies aprilis is the one that flies in April.

Photo by Yixianshuiesuan, taken in July in China. 

Photo by Xiaodoudou, taken in September. At this early stage the caterpillar resembles other Graphium caterpillars. Some species flatten out a bit as they grow up, while others beome more humpbacked. The host plant looks more typical for this genus, too.

Photo by Seventeennature, taken in September in China.

Photo by Jishenwang, also taken in September in China. This one's two pairs of false eyes may give predators pause. The working eyes are, of course, facing the surface on which it crawls. In order to see further than an inch ahead caterpillars rase their heads and look about in a shortsighted way. When tested, caterpillars seemed to be shortsighted, though Vincent Dethier, who took the trouble to test caterpillars' vision, was studying US moth caterpillars.

Photo by Jueming641, taken in September. The caterpillar's eye spots resemble the effects of a fungus infection on the leaf.

Photo by Dqk, taken in July in China. The pupa seems to be attached with an extravagant amount of silk, enough to have spun a cocoon, to a straight pin. Normally, of course, they pupate outdoors, on the undersides of leaves:

Both photos by Yzcitic_zj, taken in September in China. (One shows a single pupa close up; the other shows two pupae together, photographed further from the camera.)