Post by Adam Cotton on Jan 23, 2015 17:30:03 GMT
Today I was in a flight cage at my farm when I noticed a "butterfly commotion" in the cage backing onto the one I was in. When I looked round I saw a female Papilio memnon fluttering with a male hanging on in copulo below. I ran round to the cage and managed to get some photos of the event:
That would not be out of the ordinary, except that the male that was mating with the Papilio memnon female is Papilio bianor, as can clearly be seen in this photo:
I am not sure how long they had been mating, as they separated soon after I took the photos. It is likely that the female was not successfully fertilised, and the fluttering I saw may well have been the female trying to shake the male off her. Of course I immediately caught the Papilio memnon female and placed her in a separate flight cage which has no other butterflies in it, and will let you know if she does lay fertile eggs, and what results. She may well have been mated with a male memnon already, but she had only been released in the cage the day before.
Even if mating was successful it is rather unlikely that hybrid larvae will survive to adulthood, but at least the mating was the 'right way round'. A mating between male Papilio memnon and female Papilio bianor would produce embryos that would die before hatching from the smaller egg of Papilio bianor, as the head capsule would be too big for the egg that it was developing inside. As the egg of Papilio memnon is much larger that will theoretically not be a problem with this cross.
Adam.
That would not be out of the ordinary, except that the male that was mating with the Papilio memnon female is Papilio bianor, as can clearly be seen in this photo:
I am not sure how long they had been mating, as they separated soon after I took the photos. It is likely that the female was not successfully fertilised, and the fluttering I saw may well have been the female trying to shake the male off her. Of course I immediately caught the Papilio memnon female and placed her in a separate flight cage which has no other butterflies in it, and will let you know if she does lay fertile eggs, and what results. She may well have been mated with a male memnon already, but she had only been released in the cage the day before.
Even if mating was successful it is rather unlikely that hybrid larvae will survive to adulthood, but at least the mating was the 'right way round'. A mating between male Papilio memnon and female Papilio bianor would produce embryos that would die before hatching from the smaller egg of Papilio bianor, as the head capsule would be too big for the egg that it was developing inside. As the egg of Papilio memnon is much larger that will theoretically not be a problem with this cross.
Adam.
