From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Troidini is the tribe of Aristolochia swallowtails that includes the genus Battus.
It consists of some 135 species worldwide and 3 species that occur North America. Members of this tribe feed on poisonous pipevine plants (genus Aristolochia). As a result, they are poisonous themselves, taste extremely bad to predators (Pinheiro 1986), and are mimicked by other butterflies (Scott 1986).
[edit] References
- Pinheiro, Carlos E. G. (1996): Palatablility and escaping ability in Neotropical butterflies: tests with wild kingbirds (Tyrannus melancholicus, Tyrannidae). Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 59(4): 351–365. HTML abstract
- Scott, James A. (1986): The Butterflies of North America. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1205-0
