Caterpillars of the
World - Peru
King Page
Swallowtail
Heraclides thoas
LINNAEUS, 1771
Family -
PAPILIONIDAE
subfamily -
PAPILIONINAE
Tribe -
introduction
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habitats |
lifecycle |
adult
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Heraclides thoas, Rio Alto
Madre de Dios, Peru |
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Introduction
The family
Papilionidae is comprised of about 600 species found throughout
the world in almost every environment - including deserts,
mountains, grasslands, tropical rainforests, temperate woodland
and meadows, marshes and coastal dunes.
There are 3
subfamilies. The Parnassiinae comprises about 50 species known as
Apollos, which breed mainly in mountainous areas of the northern
hemisphere. The Papilioninae comprises of about 550 species of
worldwide distribution, and includes the Swallowtails, Dragontails
and the giant Birdwings of south-east Asia. The other subfamily
Baroniinae consists of a single species
Baronia brevicornis which is endemic to the mountains of
western Mexico.
Heraclides thoas is distributed from Mexico to Bolivia and
Argentina, and occurs as a rare stray in the southern United
States.
Habitats
This species is migratory in nature and found in many different
habitats including tropical rainforest, cloudforest, humid
deciduous forest, orchards and suburban zones at altitudes between
sea level and about 1600m.
Lifecycle
The eggs are laid
singly on leaves and stems of the larval foodplants, or on nearby
plants, along forest edges, roadsides and riverbanks. The larvae
feed primarily on
Piper, but also possibly on
Zanthoxylum,
Citrus and
Ptelea, although larvae found on these plants are more
likely to be the very closely related
cresphontes.
The
young thoas larva is dull in colour, and similar in appearance to
a bird dropping. In common with other Papilionidae larvae it is
equipped with an extrusible forked appendage - the osmaterium,
which is situated behind the head. This is everted if the larva is
molested, and gives off a noxious pheromone containing isobutyric
acid, which is believed to be used as a defence against ants.
When fully grown the larva loses
the warty tubercules and becomes pale green, with extensive areas of white on the
thoracic and anal segments.
Adult
The adult is
black, marked with broken bands of cream, and has fluted tails on
the hindwings. It is extremely similar in appearance to
Heraclides cresphontes, and can only
be distinguished from it with certainty by examination of the
abdominal tip. H. cresphontes however has
a more northerly distribution being found from Canada to Colombia.
Heraclides thoas, Rio Madre de
Dios, Peru
( photo courtesy Peter Bruce-Jones )
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