canberrabirds

Cavorting Butterflies

To: <>
Subject: Cavorting Butterflies
From: "Steve Holliday" <>
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:47:24 +1100

The Dainty Swallowtail is indeed found in Canberra, although less frequently than its larger relative. They are occasional visitors to our garden, and males can often be seen patrolling around the summit of Mts Ainslie and Majura. This behaviour is common to males of many (but by no means all) species of  butterfly and is called hill-topping - males set up a territory on a high point such as a hill top and defend it against others while waiting for a female to maybe wander through. On a good day you can see up to 15 species doing just this around the top of Mt Ainslie.

 

Interestingly, the Dainty Swallowtail is more frequent in Melbourne, where Orchard Swallowtails are rare. On the subject of common names, Dingy Swallowtail used to be widely used for the Dainty S. An awful name for a beautiful insect, well done whoever came up with the alternative!

 

cheers

Steve

 

From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Sunday, 22 February 2009 5:45 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Cavorting Butterflies

 

I notice that Michael Braby in his excellent field guide prefers the name ‘Orchard Swallowtail’ for this seasonally common and much-inquired-about insect.  He gives as another name ‘Large Citrus Butterfly’.  If that is used, the adjective seems necessary as there is also a ‘Small Citrus Butterfly’ (Dainty Swallowtail Papilio anactus) the range of which, according to the little map, includes Canberra.

 

From: Tony Lawson [
Sent: Sunday, 22 February 2009 12:33 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Cavorting Butterflies

 

The attached photos were taken in our backyard by my wife.

 

To me it looks like 2 different species - size, colour and shape are different.  But the black & white one seemed fascinated by the bigger whitish one (which looks very like one that was recently discussed on this chatline).

 

Are the species the same?  If not why were they'cavorting together'?  And what species are they?

 

One benefit of their behaviour was that they were in the same spot for quite some time rather than fluttering all over the place like most of the butterflies that we see in our garden.

 

Tony

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