Troides amphrysus

Malay Birdwing
Male, upperside
Female
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Papilionidae
Genus: Troides
Species: T. amphrysus
Binomial name
Troides amphrysus
(Cramer 1779)
Synonyms
  • Papilio amphrysus Cramer, [1779]
  • Ornithoptera ruficollis Butler, 1879
  • Ornithoptera euthydemus Fruhstorfer, 1913
  • Ornithoptera flavicollis Druce, 1873
  • Ornithoptera olympia Honrath, 1891[1]

The Malay Birdwing (Troides amphrysus) is a birdwing butterfly in the genus Troides in the papilionidae family.

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Related species

Troides amphrysus is a member of the Troides amphrysus species group. The members of this clade are:

Description

For terms see External morphology of Lepidoptera.

Male. The uppersides of the fore wings are black or dark brown, with veins bordered by pale yellow colour. The uppersides of the hind wings are golden-yellow, with black veins and black spots at the edges.

Female. The basic colour of the females is black or dark-brown, with veins bordered by white colour. The uppersides of the hind wings have a smaller golden-yellow area at the base and several yellow spots at the edges.

In both sexes the undersides are similar to the uppersides. The abdomen is yellow, while the head and thorax are black.

Life history

Figure 13 (bottom right)

The egg is large and round and a pearly color. Eggs are deposited on the food plant and the incubation period is two weeks. The first instar larva is black and bears numerous orange tubercles with short, black, branched spines. The intermediate instars 2, 3 and 4 are black. The thoracic segments have 8 tubercles and the abdominal have 6 each. These are fleshy and lack spines. The dorsal tubercles of the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and the 7th abdominal segments, are black, all the other tubercles are bright orange. In the penultimate and final instars the head is black and the thorax and abdomen is dark coffee-brown. There is no saddle mark in this species. The tubercles are largely uniform in size, shape and of the ground colour. They are incline posteriorly and the apices are bent forwards to form small hooks. This species is not monophagous. The larvae feed on Aristolochia-Aristolochia acuminata and Aristolochia foveolata and on various Thottea species.[2]

The pupa is yellowish-green and is marked with greyish veins as in a leaf. It has a broad dorsal saddle mark, this is lemon-yellow transversely marked with brown streaks. The abdomen has 3 pairs of sharp dorsal processes, directed laterally. The pupal stage lasts from 27 to 30 days.[2]

Distribution and habitat

Figure A (centre), accompanying the original description in Cramer and Stoll Uitlandsche Kapellen

This species can be found in the Australasian ecozone and in the Indomalayan ecozone, from Myanmar up to Indonesia.[1] The habitat is primary and secondary rainforest.

Behaviour

In the morning the butterflies fly at 20 m to 30 m in the canopy. Females rest on the foliage, while males glide in broad circles above them. The males perform an elaborate quivering courtship display several metres above the females, before copulation. Later in the day both sexes descend to feed on flowering trees and bushes including Lantana.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Funet
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 =" Straatman, Raymond & Nieuwenhuis, Engbert Jan , 1961 Biology of certain Sumatran Species of Atrophaneura, Trogonoptera, and Troides (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae). Tijdschr. Ent. 104(3): 31-41

External links

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