Southeastern Asian Butterflies

[Adam Cotton]

Only males of Papilio paris fly down to the lowland around forested mountainsides, the females stay up at higher elevations where they lay their eggs, mainly on Toddalia asiatica. Larvae are intolerant of high temperatures, and cannot survive in the lowlands.
Papilio arcturus is rarely seen below 1,000 m and is only found on mountains of at least 1,500m. On the other hand both males and females of P. alcmenor can be found at lower elevations in humid forest habitat, not just around mountaintops. Ssp. publilius occurs in western Thailand and southern Burma, whereas P. alcmenor in Nan province and Laos seems to belong to ssp. alcmenor. The female is a very good mimic of Byasa polyeuctes but note that the body is black similar to mimetic females of P. polytes, not red like Byasa species. The only mimetic Papilio species with red on the abdomenis P. bootes. I have found both males and females of P. alcmenor at only 200m altitude in Laos.
Papilio castor, however, is only found below about 500m or so and feeds exclusively on Glycosmis species, mainly pentaphylla and citrifolia.

Adam.

[wolf]

P. polytes female f. cyrus. It has a tail deformity. Caught Da Nang area at sea level, Vietnam 2010.

[Adam Cotton]

May 2, 2018 15:22:08 GMT wolf said:

P. polytes female f. cyreus

I guess that is a typo, as the form name is cyrus, not cyreus.

I keep a pure bred bloodline of this recessive form, and prevent inbreeding by putting some specimens in the cage with normal polytes, then whenever a female form cyrus hatches among the normal ones it is used for breeding with the cyrus line. That is the only way to ensure that only the male-like cyrus gene is maintained in that bloodline, since it is impossible to tell by looking at males which genes they are carrying.

Vietnamese polytes seems intermediate to ssp. polytes. In Hagiang, the far northernmost province, there are some really unusual forms, both males (left column) and females (right):



As well as normal males (some looking like ssp. polytes, others like ssp. romulus) some of them seem almost mimetic, and the females can have narrowed hindwings reminiscent of Papilio elwesi which also only occurs in that province in Vietnam.

Adam.

[Paul K]

Drawer #5

Family: Papilionidae
Tribe: Papilionini
Genus: Papilio ( subgenus: Chilasa )

Col.1
Papilio agestor agestor Gray,1831, males, locally common in the mountains of North Thailand.
Col.2
Papilio epycides hypochra Jordan,1909, males, occurs in the same habitat as P.agestor
Col.3 ( from bottom )
Papilio slateri marginata Obertur,1893, two males, uncommon species I have found only in central Laos in lowland primary forest.
Papilio slateri slateri Hewitson,[1859], male, also uncommon as previous subspecies, can be found locally in Northern Thailand.
Papilio clytia clytia Linnaeus,1758, males, 1-f.clytia, 2,3-f.onpape , common in Thailand and Laos in lowland primary forests.
Col.4 ( from bottom )
Papilio clytia clytia Linnaeus,1758, males, 1,2-f.dissimilima, 3-6-form dissimilis
Col.5
Papilio paradoxa telearchus Hewitson,1852, males, rare in Thailand, I have found uncommon in Central Laos in lowland primary forest.

All the species of subgenus Chilasa occur in Thailand and Laos are mimetic to Danainae in particular to Parantica and Euploea species.

[deliasfanatic]

I'm quite partial to P. paradoxa - as is often the case for mimetic species. I happen to have a photo of my drawer, so I'll share it here:

P paradoxa drawer 1310 by D B, on Flickr

Subspecies are as indicated, but I can append the info here if the labels are difficult to read. The last specimen in column 2 is interesting because it's a transition between the two normal male forms.

[Adam Cotton]

May 3, 2018 2:39:51 GMT Paul K said:

Drawer #5

Family: Papilionidae
Tribe: Papilionini
Genus: Papilio ( subgenus: Chilasa )

Col.1
Papilio agestor agestor Gray,1831, males, locally common in the mountains of North Thailand.
Col.2
Papilio epycides hypochra Jordan,1909, males, occurs in the same habitat as P.agestor
Col.3 ( from bottom )
Papilio slateri marginata Obertur,1893, two males, uncommon species I have found only in central Laos in lowland primary forest.
Papilio slateri slateri Hewitson,[1859], male, also uncommon as previous subspecies, can be found locally in Northern Thailand.
Papilio clytia clytia Linnaeus,1758, three males form dissimilis, common in Thailand and Laos in lowland primary forests.
Col.4 ( from bottom )
Papilio clytia clytia Linnaeus,1758, males, 1-f.clytia, 2,3-f.onpape, 4,5-f.dissimilima, 6-f.dissimilis
Col.5
Papilio paradoxa telearchus Hewitson,1852, males, rare in Thailand, I have found uncommon in Central Laos in lowland primary forest.

All the species of subgenus Chilasa occur in Thailand and Laos are mimetic to Danainae in particular to Parantica and Euploea species.

It is worth noting that Papilio agestor and epycides are univoltine, only occurring immediately after the cool season (late January to April, depending on locality and weather), so they are only common once per year. They are only found on or near mountains as the females live at high altitude, but males fly down to the lowlands nearby. Papilio epycides tends to have a shorter flight period than P. agestor, both species feed on montane species of Litsea or Cinnamomum. P. slateri seems to be univoltine in mainland SE Asia, also only occurring in 'spring', but is multivoltine in Sundaland.

P. clytia and paradoxa are multivoltine, flying several times a year. P. clytia is commonly found around secondary growth, where it feeds on Litsea glutinosa, but paradoxa is rather local, generally confined to wet low altitude forest, but I have found it to be common in the vicinity of Luang Nam Tha town, NW Laos, outside the forest. I expect that the distribution is dependant on the presence of Cinnamomum or Machilus, the larval hosts.

All species in the Chilasa group feed on species of Lauraceae, and are actually related to the American Papilio species rather than the Asian ones.

Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

It should also be mentioned that in Thailand P. slateri slateri is only found in the north west, mainly Mae Hong Son. In the rest of mainland Thailand and Laos it is ssp. marginata. In Ranong near the southern tip of Burma it is ssp. tavoyanus and in the far south is ssp. perses as in W. Malaysia and Sumatra.

Adam.

[Paul K]

May 3, 2018 9:41:20 GMT Adam Cotton said:

It should also be mentioned that in Thailand P. slateri slateri is only found in the north west, mainly Mae Hong Son. In the rest of mainland Thailand and Laos it is ssp. marginata. In Ranong near the southern tip of Burma it is ssp. tavoyanus and in the far south is ssp. perses as in W. Malaysia and Sumatra.

Adam.

I am glad I post pictures of my specimens here, I see they are motivate you Adam to share some of your great knowledge about Papilionidae of Thailand. My comments are only based on my short time research in Thailand and Laos and cannot be in any way compared to yours which includes live time commitment to study those amazing insects.

Paul

[Adam Cotton]

I am also glad that you are posting these pictures, as it gives me a chance to share my knowledge with everyone and a focus for discussion.

Adam.

[trehopr1]

Deliasfanatic, I see that you also have a singular example of Papilio paradoxa telearchus f. danisepa also in your collection! I posted a picture of one which I have in my collection and you provided an updated name for it as all I had was an old label name to go by (Papilio danisepa). I posted it in my "Beautiful Things" thread. Is this form rarely seen in private collections? Is it something of a hard to get form as I see you have only one? Just curious...

[trehopr1]

Hey Paul, that P. arcturus must be a tough one to find in N.Thailand. You only managed to get one. Maybe you only managed one visit up that way... Sure is a dandy!
I would have no problem filling an entire drawer with (males)and another with (females) of that one as I'll bet it's variable in it's color.

[trehopr1]

Maybe Adam could show us some of his holdings of Thai Papilionidae?

[deliasfanatic]

May 3, 2018 18:32:25 GMT trehopr1 said:

Deliasfanatic, I see that you also have a singular example of Papilio paradoxa telearchus f. danisepa also in your collection! I posted a picture of one which I have in my collection and you provided an updated name for it as all I had was an old label name to go by (Papilio danisepa). I posted it in my "Beautiful Things" thread. Is this form rarely seen in private collections? Is it something of a hard to get form as I see you have only one? Just curious...

The subspecies is fairly hard to find in general, and f. danisepa is much the scarcer of the two forms. My drawer photo is outdated as usual, but I still have only the single male - I've lusted for a female for many years!

[Adam Cotton]

May 3, 2018 18:43:31 GMT trehopr1 said:

Hey Paul, that P. arcturus must be a tough one to find in N.Thailand. You only managed to get one. Maybe you only managed one visit up that way... Sure is a dandy!
I would have no problem filling an entire drawer with (males)and another with (females) of that one as I'll bet it's variable in it's color.

P. arcturus only occurs on the higher mountains of Thailand, with peaks well over 1500m, usually at least 1800m+. Almost all of them are inside national parks, so it's difficult to find places where this species can be legally collected nowadays. I have never caught this species in Thailand, and actually have only ever caught a single male myself, at 1,020m on a 1,800m mountain (Phou Chomvoy) east of Lak Sao, Laos. They very rarely come down to lower altitude, although they have very occasionally been seen at about 700m near the Vietnam border east of Lak Sao. Inayoshi recently photographed a female laying an egg, at Doi Inthanon above 2000m, on Melicope ptelefolia but it also feeds on Tetradium fraxinifolium and Zanthoxylum acanthopodium on that mountain.

Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

Here is my draw of Thai paradoxa:



Column 1 from left top Assam, India, the rest and column 2 are from Burma, columns 3 and 4 are from Thailand.

Adam.