Papilio dardanus female form ID

[dynastes]

Hello to all.



Please help me ID Papilio dardanus female form

Butterfly from the farm, no collectible data, presumably Cameroon

The seller identifies it as hippocoon.   But as for me, it looks more like hippocoonoides

[africaone]

waow, nice catch !

[mcheki]

Welcome to the minefield!
The forms of Papilio dardanus are many and confusing. Your specimen appears to be an aberration of one of the black and white forms. These forms vary between the subspecies so location of collection becomes important. What do you mean by “the farm”? Is it an ex pupa specimen from a pupa you obtained and hatched out yourself? If so this may be helpful.
To me the appearance is of form hippocoonides. Definitely not form hippocoon. Possibly of subspecies tibillus. This subspecies is from eastern Africa. There is no form hippocoonoides, but there is a form dominicanoides which is similar.

[dynastes]

Sept 16, 2020 16:16:22 GMT mcheki said:

Welcome to the minefield!
The forms of Papilio dardanus are many and confusing. Your specimen appears to be an aberration of one of the black and white forms. These forms vary between the subspecies so location of collection becomes important. What do you mean by “the farm”? Is it an ex pupa specimen from a pupa you obtained and hatched out yourself? If so this may be helpful.
To me the appearance is of form hippocoonides. Definitely not form hippocoon. Possibly of subspecies tibillus. This subspecies is from eastern Africa. There is no form hippocoonoides, but there is a form dominicanoides which is similar.

A farm is a company that exports pupae of a large number of species for commercial purposes, some of them are resold, some are raised into butterflies. it is not possible to find ends in taxonomy and localities here. 

In my case, this is the Ukrainian company Butterfly Planet. Its founder is Vladimir Partizan. As far as I know, this company sell pupae to many countries.

[Adam Cotton]

As far as I know, most of the commercial breeders exporting pupae out of tropical Africa are in Kenya or Tanzania, so it is likely that the stock originated somewhere there, but it is equally likely that the livestock did not come from a single locality. There are also breeders in southern Africa, and live material can be mixed from different places and bred together.

Commercial butterfly farms in the Philippines exchange live pupae across different parts of the archipelago and mix them all together to reduce the possibility of inbreeding. As a result it is very difficult to assign a geographical origin to commercially farmed material, unless the origin of the stock is known and communicated by the breeders and sellers.

Adam.

[africaone]

Sept 16, 2020 20:23:47 GMT Adam Cotton said:

As far as I know, most of the commercial breeders exporting pupae out of tropical Africa are in Kenya or Tanzania, so it is likely that the stock originated somewhere there, but it is equally likely that the livestock did not come from a single locality. There are also breeders in southern Africa, and live material can be mixed from different places and bred together.

Commercial butterfly farms in the Philippines exchange live pupae across different parts of the archipelago and mix them all together to reduce the possibility of inbreeding. As a result it is very difficult to assign a geographical origin to commercially farmed material, unless the origin of the stock is known and communicated by the breeders and sellers.

Adam.

a nightmare as dardanus covers a complex of species not yet solved .... 

[mcheki]

Sept 16, 2020 20:23:47 GMT Adam Cotton said:

As far as I know, most of the commercial breeders exporting pupae out of tropical Africa are in Kenya or Tanzania, so it is likely that the stock originated somewhere there, but it is equally likely that the livestock did not come from a single locality. There are also breeders in southern Africa, and live material can be mixed from different places and bred together.

Commercial butterfly farms in the Philippines exchange live pupae across different parts of the archipelago and mix them all together to reduce the possibility of inbreeding. As a result it is very difficult to assign a geographical origin to commercially farmed material, unless the origin of the stock is known and communicated by the breeders and sellers.

Adam.

Following on from this discussion it has long been a concern of mine that breeders could alter the genetic code of a local subspecies. Particularly in a case like Papilio dardanus where many subspecies occur. For example livestock of the eastern Kenya subspecies i.e ssp: tibillus if taken to another area of Africa, even say to western Kenya in order to produce further pupae for sale, could, if adults escaped and came into contact with the local subspecies, in this case ssp: dardanus, contaminate the local gene pool. To my mind this is unacceptable and should be avoided and objected to strongly. Altering the gene pool in this way will permanently change the variety of forms that originated in the area.